Night Hounds
by Death Boo
Summary: Inuyasha has reason in his plans, it's just that he's crazy, or has to be crazy if he wants things to succeed. Dark setting, filled with unrelated digging, Review.
1. 509 Years Later

Night hounds – Inuyasha fanfic story.

Disclaimer – Inuyasha and all the characters in it belong to Rumiko Takahashi, I'm simply borrowing them for non-profitable reasons.

Spoiler notes: nothing really, I've started writing it after the anime finished, but it contains no spoilers, it can be read once you've passed the episode of Inuyasha with the dragon, I guess. However, if you're a manga reader, some parts may contradict with what happened after the anime ended, so please do your best to ignore those contradictions and focus on the story.

Other notes: seeing as some of the story takes place outside of Japan, I've taken special notice to care for the differences between nations, therefore, do not be offended if the characters treat people from a nationality different of their own (Japanese) differently, same goes with languages.

Historical notes: I've taken the liberty of mentioning a bit of historic events in the story, I've studied a bit of Japan's history in high school (it's funny saying so; it's been less than a month since I've finished high school), and of course, anime series mention a lot of historical references, if you need some explaining on those events, then review and ask me to do so.

Chapter 01: 509 years later.

It started out as another normal day for Kagome, She woke up at her office at 5:40, and without even a cup of coffee she was already walking over to an important meeting, this one was about the increasing amount of low rate criminals in Japan. Which wasn't in Kagome's field of action, but her superiors still wanted her to participate in the meeting, if only to keep her head sharp. Plus, she had a promotion waiting for her next week; she couldn't afford to be less than her best.

30 minutes later, after the meeting was over without any decision, she finally walked over to the office showers, most of her co-workers have either showered before or just arrived from their houses, she got undressed and entered the shower, she didn't have to worry about guys peeping at her, those types of guys would have never passed the third exam to get the job.

"Things defiantly changed" She thought to herself, "Nine years ago, I thought that I knew my world, and since then... I can't even begin to understand everything that I'm involved with" Secrecy was top priority, she barley knew her co-workers names, she got orders only from her direct boss, and she never heard anything about the supreme commander of the forces... her agency was Japan's top secret organization, it rooted back to the Feudal ages, and not once has it been branched to the outside world.

"Strange world, I wonder what made me go to that job interview at the first place.." it was after she graduated, as top student of the school, she had many scholarships to choose from, at any kind of school she could think of: art, science, politics, everything was open for her, every big institution sent her letters, calling her to join them and get "Easy living", "High Salary", "Grand bonuses" and other goods, only one form stood out.

It was an invitation to the personal interview, it said nothing about her salary, pension terms or vast goodies, it was almost mocking her, asking her 'do you think you're the best? Do you have what it takes?' it didn't specify what kind of job was it, or even for whom she would work, but it still got her interested. No, in fact, that was what got her interested, she lived through the hardships of the feudal ages, after such an experience she could never go back to living a peaceful lifestyle.

She walked out of the shower and wore her clothes quickly, she still had to go to her real briefing about today's actions, she suspected that another small rate youkai was trying to interfere with the human world again. Most of the youkais were extinct over the years, and the ones who survived were either those who tried to infiltrate into the human society, or the ones strong enough to hide themselves for long periods of time.

"I'm glad you could join us, ms. Hirugashi, now please take your seat and listen" Her boss and coworkers from cell 03 didn't even look at her, they were all far too experienced to waste time on such trivial things like one's face, the gap between steps was usually a more accurate way of identity verification for them. Kagome quickly sat down on her chair, the motto of the Night Hounds was encrypted on the wall: "For the kids of tomorrow" was the short version, it didn't sound like a motto of the feudal ages time, but the complete version was twice as confusing:

"For the kids of tomorrow, one year from now and for those who will be born 500 years from today"

Those words were traced exactly 500 years back, but no one could figure out what drove the two brothers to use that sentence when they created the organization, it was the only institution that survived Japan's changes unharmed, even when the westerns came, they weren't found and continued working toward their goal of keeping Japan safe.

At seven thirty, Kagome walked out to the street like most of Tokyo's normal residents, her mission wasn't due to begin until nighttime, so she had a full day to act like a normal person and to see the world through the eyes of an ordinary person. In Kagome's case it meant going to her second work and sitting behind the desk all day. She tried to take confront in the fact that one of her co-workers was a toad youkai, and she could try to milk information out of him, but then she remembered that today was his free day from work.

"Smelly frog…" She muttered, "I'd just love to blow a bullet through you head some day…" this kind of thoughts would terrorize her mind when she was younger, but today, they were another part of Kagome's life, just like lying to her mother and brother about her work, and just like using men for one evening and then dumpin' them like a yesterdays paper (actually, she stayed with them until she was sure they have fallen head-over-hills for her, and only then she got rid of them).

"It's all his fault"

That one sudden thought caused her to stop moving, she mentally slapped herself. She should have known that it would happen, it was what he wanted from the start, and she was just part of the road he had to take to get to his goal. She promised herself that she'll never think about him, and most defiantly never cry about what happened. Never.

But those thoughts still got her into a bad mood, whatever youkai she'll have to hunt this night, he won't get away easily if he would try to put up a fight, not at all.

Sometimes Kagome wondered what would have happened to her if she hadn't joined the night hounds, adrenaline was her drug since she went to the feudal age, striving for excellence in school was one way to pump herself up, and so was pointing a gun to a demon's head after a long trail. Kagome secretly laughed inside her, her first guess was that if she wouldn't have joined the night hounds, then she would become a criminal herself.

"Funny how the wheel turns around" she smiled to herself, not many people got to see her smile nowadays, even less got to see her tears, she claimed that she run out of them both long time ago. "Too bad, Sango used to say I have a wonderful smile" she mentioned to herself, Kagome tried to avoid thinking about Sango and Miroku, their memories were always tainted with the memory of Inuyasha.

-------+-----+--------

Nighttime came, Kagome finally left her second office and headed out for the rendezvous spot, in which she had her personal gear waiting for her, and the newest information about today's mission. She wondered what kind of youkai will he turn out to be, most of the species were extinct since the feudal age, most of the youkai were bug and rodents youkais: Flees, mosquitoes, rats and mice. The records of the canine races were lost during the revolution, but Kagome hoped that they have all died. Painfully.

While Kagome was sulking in her own happy world of drowning puppies (in poison acid), a strange man suddenly bumped into her. Kagome first thought of reaction was to pull out her gun and shoot him between the eyes, she quickly dismissed that solutions for three factors, the first; she didn't have her gun with her at that point. The second, shooting someone in the middle of the street will cause a commotion, and the third: the man that bumped into her was bleeding, badly.

"Are you o.k, mister? What happened to you?" she asked him, then she realized that he looked very familiar, she took a closer look at his face, she recognized him immediately from her office, it was her boss, not someone that would die easily, she was pretty sure that she heard him bragging about escaping from a cave of rat youkais drug dealers.

But he was still bleeding, she run her hand on his back, looking for a bullet entry hole or another indication for the murder weapon, her fingers came across something hard and long that was stuck in his back, it wasn't cold as metal was supposed to be and it was too long to be a knife anyway, but it was at the perfect size to be an arrow.

"I see that guys are still willing to die for your sake, and I was just trying to immobilize him" the words came with a dead voice and a dark feeling attached to them, Kagome couldn't exactly place the voice but she was sure it was a woman speaking.

"Now, tell me, where is that filthy traitor?" the voice asked, Kagome heard a string being pulled; it didn't take much for her to realize that there was another arrow pointed at her. The attacker came close to street lamp, she was indeed a female, she looked like a modern high-class woman of Tokyo, but Kagome still couldn't shake the feeling that something was familiar about her.

"Expert archery, longer hair in a back low ponytail, white and red clothes…" Kagome started thinking, imagining the woman in a different style of appearance, everything came back to her, it was Kikyo pointing an arrow at her… but she couldn't understand why, Kikyo was supposed to have everything she could want. The shikon jewel gave her life, Naraku was dead and she even had Inuyasha with her… as far as Kagome could see, Kikyo had a perfect, eternal life.

"Don't try to fool around with me; I know Inuyasha came to Japan last month... Surely he had contacted you" Kikyo said sharply, not giving away any emotion other than hate, which wasn't directed only at Kagome.

Something red blinkered suddenly at the edge of the street, it was moving fast and away from them, in Kagome's line of sight but behind Kikyo, it wore a red kimono and had a long white hair, Kagome focused her eyes on him, and then she saw that it wasn't only the kimono which was red, he was also bleeding. Inuyasha.

"Is he escaping? Is her trying to run away? Is she going to shoot him? Did she shoot him before?" Kagome struggled with the dilemma of choosing her next action, she always believed that if the chance would come she would get her vengeance on Inuyasha for leaving her, and under that logic she would have to point Kikyo to Inuyasha's direction.

But she couldn't, he was bleeding and running away, the thought of calling him to help her passed in her mind, but Kagome quickly dismissed it, she wasn't the same girl she used to be, she didn't need or want his help. The only solution she could come up was to stay silent and hope that Inuyasha would manage to escape…

Kikyo stared deeply at Kagome's face "Don't try to trick me, little girl, your eyes tell me everything", in a sudden motion, she turned around and released the arrow in freighting speed, in less than a second, the arrow already hit the other side of the street, the exact spot that Inuyasha was supposed to be. Kagome could only breathe in relief that Kikyo missed her target.

"To hell with it! I missed him!" Kikyo cursed and started running, she already placed another arrow in her bow.

A car stopped next to Kagome, "get in, fast! Before Kikyo realizes it was an illusion and comes back!" Someone yelled to her from the car, but once Kikyo left and the adrenaline count went down, Kagome was too shocked to even move. "Don't just stand there! Get in already, don't worry about Inuyasha, he's not even in Asia anymore!" he called once again, but this time, he also pulled her into the car and started accelerating.

Several minutes afterward, Kagome was tired from the silence in the car, she looked at the indoors of the vehicle, it wasn't a sports car, but it was defiantly something close to it, it had blackened windows and Kagome could tell they were going 150KMH. From what she could tell, the driver was almost 10 years younger than her, barley a teenager, but what amazed her the most was the giant symbol on the inner roof.

Two swords circling Japan, one sword was large and vicious and the other was slim an elegant, it was the symbol of the night hound's organization, and only high ranked members were allowed to carry it around, even her boss wasn't allowed to carry a picture of it outside of the building, so that if he somehow loses his equipment, there would still be no evidence of the NH organization.

"Yep, she's a beauty, ain't she? Inu paid a lot to get it modified to Japan… he said I shouldn't attract attention by having the steering wheel on the right …" the boy said, but as far as Kagome could think, the boy wasn't in the legal age to get a driving license, let alone be part of the night hounds.

"When you said earlier that it was an illusion, what did you mean?" Kagome asked him, human illusion specialists were rare and most of them used their abilities for crime, even those who worked with the night hounds were always treated with suspicion.

"sorry about that, even my illusions can't trick Kikyo, so I had to get to her through you, don't worry about Inu, he's perfectly safe" he answered, "good, we've gotten far enough from Tokyo, I don't like driving in the city, we'll take the long route around so we'll be able to meet our boss in an hour or so" he continued.

"Our boss? Just who the hell are you anyway?" Kagome almost screamed, she didn't like the brat's attitude towards her, she didn't like the fact she just met Kikyo, and she hated the fact Inuyasha was mentioned in the conversation.

"Shippo of international affairs, direct employee of the big boss, and number one at illusions" he said proudly, Kagome could tell that it was some of the truth, but not entirely.

"The night hounds don't deal with anything that happens outside of Japan, we don't have international affairs section" she spitted the question at him, he didn't even give him her real name, no human will be called Shippo, it had to be some alias.

"Originally we didn't, but since the modernization we had to, or else everything would go to waste, we can't let Japanese youkai travel all around the world without us watching over them…" Shippo said proudly, and then he softened his voice, "It's good to see you again, you look great. I'm sorry we couldn't contact you before, but we had to hide Inuyasha from Kikyo".

That was too much for Kagome, she sent her hand to her shoe and pulled her hidden knife out, she hated being left in the dark, and the boy knew too much to be considered a friend, she wondered whether it was a bad dream or a cruel prank, she moved slowly behind him, and in a sudden movement she held the knife to his neck.

"Tell me the truth, dammit! Who are and what do you want?"

The boy kept driving steady, Kagome pointed her knife at many people, and every one and one of them showed signs of fear, whether in his breathing, in sweat or in his speech.

"I never guessed that you could've change that much, so the reports on you weren't exaggerated, you're really a murderous psychotic bitch…" he said calmly, it was well over Kagome's nerves, in a swift motion, she pulled her blade to his neck, she believed that she could take over the wheel before the car goes off track.

There was only one flaw in her plan, somehow the boy stopped the knife from connecting with his neck, and somehow, he actually managed to disarm her before she noticed. "let's take it all nice and slow, k? I'm Shippo, your friend from five hundred years ago, and you're Kagome, and you aren't a cold hearted killer".

That alone caused Kagome to hate him now twice as much as she hated him before, mostly because he was right, Kagome knew that she wasn't a killer by birth, even when she pulled the trigger against living targets, she always felt something in her heart, something always ached her, telling her she wasn't supposed to do those things.

"Shippo ha? Can you prove it?" She asked coldly.

"I should have seen this one coming… she doesn't want to believe me and expose herself emotionally" Shippo thought to himself, then he decided to play along with her, "with enough luck, we might be able to avoid having a teary scene here.." he hoped secretly.

"Just try to listen to me, ok? After Naraku's defeat and your departure, Inu and Kikyo got married and moved to Inu's old home, Sango and Miroku were mad at him for what he did to you, so they never kept in touch after that…

I'm not sure of the details, but when I came to visit him after fifty years, I've learned from Seeshomaru that Kikyo was going after Inu's life for already ten years at that point.

it seems that she was mad at him for spending too much time with Sesshomaru on their new business, and Kikyo accused him of still being in-love with you, and from that point their relationship started to go down the hill, so Sesshomaru took over the business alone"

Those were few facts that Kagome never told anyone, she never mentioned Kikyo to her family, let alone Naraku, and after everything ended, she just said that her days of being away are over. Sure, her family tried to question her about it, and they probably figured that it had something to do with Inuyasha.

Still, only her family knew those things, and they wouldn't tell anyone about it, so how was it possible for that guy to know about it? "Could it be that they kidnapped mom or Souta?" Kagome cursed herself in her mind, angry at herself for not coming back home more, not calling to talk more often, and completely ignoring her obligations as a daughter.

"Don't dwell on it too much, it'll all come clear when we get there" Shippo said, he pressed a button and the windows black coverage folded down into the car, Kagome looked out, they were back in Tokyo in the part of it that she was born in and lived most of her life in, they took all the streets that led exactly to her house.

"Why are here?" she asked, there was no mistake they passed the garden near her house, and the car started slowing down, until complete stop.

"We're meeting the big boss here, his brother's love for the god-tree kinda grew on to him as well, damn potz… he has even less patience than in the old days" Shippo muttered silently, it was never a good idea to disrespect the man who signs your paycheck, he signaled her to step out of the car.

At the first sight, Kagome couldn't see anything besides the god-tree, she tried turning to Shippo but she couldn't see him as well, she tried focusing her eyes, "haven't I told you? Us youkais have to use illusion most of the time, don't worry, you'll get used to it with time" he said.

Kagome almost gapped in surprise when she realized that she begun seeing the air move near the tree, it become more and more clear to her the longer she stared at it, a man, not much taller than her, hiding behind a business suit and at the same time, showing off a great amount of self esteem and self confidence. Shippo took a step closer, the man turned to them and suddenly, his whole posture changed into a much more intimidating one, Kagome felt like a worm standing in front of a flamethrower.

"I got the point, Sess, you don't have to go overboard all the time... For the kids of tomorrow, one year from now and for those who will be born 500 years from today" Shippo chanted the motto in a tired voice. The man returned to his 'normal' state, "it's a matter of formality, besides, we're in the presence of another employee, how would it reflect on her if I wasn't obeying the rules I set myself?" he asked sharply, leaving no space to conversation.

"I'm not one to argue with you, sir', but as you predicted, she ain't all that happy to hear the news" Shippo said, it somewhat didn't fit with Kagome's perspective of him. From what she could tell, he was an 'in your face' person, that sort of bowing down to a peer, even if he was a superior, didn't seem as something he would normally do.

"That only means us two will have to deal with more useless luggage, but the situation isn't something we can't handle, at least not yet"

"Not yet...? what could he mean by that" Kagome thought to herself, for some reason, he seemed to her as an invincible being, and she was quite sure he also thought of himself as one, but the worrying tone in his voice was real.

"Agent Hirugashi, go and change inside the car, we'll be leaving shortly, and we have to get you out of your clothes" The man handed her a package and threw her the keys, "Me and Agent Shippo will go over the final details" she started stepping silently to the car.

"pure bred idiots! With a ride like this, I could escape from here to Nagoya before you'd even think about the possibility that I've run away!" Kagome smiled to herself, the two men were too caught up with their delusional plans to even consider what she could do with the car keys. She moved into the front sit and inserted the key.

Something broke, she instantly realized it was the key, the car had different key for opening it and igniting the engine.

"I'm not someone to be thought of as a fool, Agent Kagome. Move to the back sit and get dressed already, we never know when that neurotic woman would figure out where are we and come here to put some arrows through your beloved family" He entered the car, she almost immediately did as he said, without even thinking about it, only when she was completely naked she realized that she was clothes-less in front of what might be a pair of Mirokus.

"Don't sweat it, me and Sesshomaru here saw more naked women then you can imagine, I'll go slow for a while, but we're on a tight schedule, so once you've put on the cloths, I'll step on it" Shippo entered the car as well, Kagome swore at herself for not noticing that Sesshomaru was the one who gave her the keys, and because of the incident, they'd be much more caution to her future actions.

"I wonder, didn't the psychological profile indicate Agent Kagome would be constantly hugging you to make up for all the lost time? In my eyes she's acting fairly normal, almost as if the matter doesn't directly relate to her."

"Don't sweat it, our men also mentioned the possibility she'll be blocking some stuff for a while, it might be for the best, sir, it would make it harder for Kikyo to trace us"

Kagome took a look at the clothes she was told to wear, everything was freshly bought, perhaps even today, the shirts were made by a western company and wouldn't stand out in about 70 of the world.

"Kagura should be waiting for us, she's supposed to be very near, I suggest you make arrangements for the car to be stalled away, I'm sure driving it would be hazardous in the next month"

"Speaking of other agents, do you have any news about Bossuke's condition? He took an arrow before I was able to secure Kagome"

"I've been informed about Agent Bossuke by Agent Jaken, I was told that he is in the clinic getting cared of, the arrow didn't carry much killing intent, I believe that Kikyo was tailing Agent Bossuke in order to attack Kagome while the mission was in progress, but Agent Bossuke has noticed and confronted her, forcing her into early action.

"Such an amazing man, you've sure made a good choice with Bossuke, who'll be taking over the office until the recovery?"

"I've told Agent Jaken that until agent Bossuke's return, Agent Managemaru will be head of that section, in top of that, I've told him to keep his toad-ly ass next to the desk and inform me if something new happens."

"You're truly sick and tired from his rumblings as well, aren't you? Can't blame you for it, hearing his briefing for two hours was over the line for me, so I guess 500 hundred years is even more then you can take. Anyway, you sure are lucky that the Kenhito brothers work for you, I can't think of any human better fitted to the job than them."

"Kagura is here, so I'll request you to lock your mouth and stop the car. You too, Agent Kagome, any offense made to Kagura is an offense made to me".

END of chapter one.

Well, it's been a while since I've published something, be sure to check back in a few days for more, as I plan to at least realese what I've wrote before getting drafted to the army. Also, feel free to review, as I'm an insecure person who needs constant attention.

more information in my bio page, now, I'll be off to find the latest inuyasha chapter. don't forget to review.


	2. Some reunions

Disclaimer: I'm an 18 years old Israeli boy, not a 50 something Japanese woman, therefore, I'm not Rumiko Takahashi and I don't own Inuyasha.

Chapter 02: Some reunions.

The car finally stopped, Kagome took a look a the woman standing next to it, she had the same feeling as the other two, she dressed modern, but her hair was styled in an old fashion way, wings as hair pins and the whole deal, the only advantage in that style was that even skydiving the hair kept it shape, so it was often used by pop idols who tried to make a special entrance to parties.

"For the kids of tomorrow, one year from now..."The woman started quoting the motto, Kagome now noticed her hair wasn't the only old fashioned part of her look, she also carried a fan, one with the night hounds symbol on it.

"Kagura, such a thing isn't needed for us, you know me very well, and so do I know you" Sesshomaru interrupted her," Agent Shippo, lead Agent Kagome to the plane, I want you to make sure she doesn't do anything to it, losing it might force us to risk our cover"

This time, Kagome noted something in the man's form of speech, the woman next to them wasn't just an employee of him, under normal circumstances, she would have tried to further analyze the relationship between them, but at that time, she was more concerned about the aircraft standing before them.

"This.. This looks like you cut off the newest jet fighter engines and stuck them on an early design of the Wright brothers, can this thing fly?"

"Most likely, and I bet it's pretty fast as well, Kagura really likes stuff which can go faster than her... anyway, you shouldn't be worrying about dying in a plane crush, or anywhere in the air, for that matter. We can gain a few days advantage on Kikyo whenever we take the air route, plus, she can't do much if we are far away from land", Shippo said to her, slightly pushing her to take a seat, for some reason, it was an open seat.

"Flight Kagura one-eight-eight to NZ is departing in ten seconds, hold tight to your seats and try not scream too loudly during the takeoff, for your pleasure, you can find stink bombs under the chair, so you can try hitting a ship if you see one"

"Kagura, where did you get that idea from? And since when are you wasting the organization's money on commercial flights?" Sesshomaru asked her, Kagome couldn't hear the answer as the plane was somehow accelerating and producing some ominous noises in the process, but she could see that whatever the answer was, it pleased Sesshomaru to the point of blushing and trying to respond, just in the moment the engine started to quiet down.

"... 20,000 feet club with me!"

She suddenly felt something pushed on to her, Shippo's elbow "god, first living with Miroku and now these two, my fragile soul is tainted by perverts all around me." he whispered to her, somehow, against her will and better judgment, that comment got her laughing hard and loud.

"So, young lady, how are you taking this so far?" Kagura asked, raising her voice especially high.

"I'm sorry" Kagome answered, "I acknowledge you three are my superiors, but I've yet to be really briefed about the situation, where are we headed now?" she asked.

"You poor thing, I guess the shock was too great for you, I told you two that it's best

to approach her long before anything remotely smelling like trouble would begin, but you had to follow that brain-dead's ideas, what exactly made him believe he could stay away from Japan for over forty years... saying all the crap about letting the girl live out the rest of her life in peace, did he really believe Kikyo will calm down once Kagome is settled?"

"Kagura, it's a waste of breath trying to explain anything to Agent Kagome right now, she's blocking everything, I think it'll be best to leave it to my brother"

"Please, sir, I don't understand the position I'm in yet, so in order to be useful in whatever situation we're headed to, I plead of you to inform me of it"

"Listen, Kagome, let me explain it to you in simple terms that you'll grasp, you're good with numbers, right?"

Kagome nodded for agreement.

"we have 3 main objects, A, B and C, those are either on point alpha or point beta, if A and B are both together, then C will go after both, so as long as A is at alpha, B is strictly staying at beta, so that C will only go after him and leave A alone. However, a month ago, B had to arrive on alpha, causing C to follow, and when C realized that both A and B are at alpha, she tripled her efforts to get to both of you, i mean them. So at the moment, we're delivering A from alpha to a point at beta, in which D will provide us the necessaries we need to get with A to B at a different point at beta without making contact with C, is it clear?"

"Which one of you is D?"

"None of us is D, she lives at beta, and we should be getting to her in a few hours,"

"Where is beta?"

"Beta is anywhere not alpha, however, in a way, alpha is defined by A, so if alpha is getting closer to B, then C is following"

"That still doesn't make much sense, can you explain it again?"

"Do you want me to draw storyboards of it? You used to like years ago, I can steal a pack of crayons and doodle something"

"Agents F and A, shut your noise holes, the vein of agents S forehead is about to explode"

"Excuse me? What do you mean by that, Kagura?""

"Hey! How come I'm Agent F while he keeps his name?"

"The F stands for failure in your code name, and in his name the S stands for him being so damn se..."

"I've spotted a Soul snatcher tailing us, so please shut up"

---------------------------

At some aspects of his life, he would have much preferred if things didn't change from how they were 500 years ago. Sure, he had to put his life on the line every day or so, sometimes twice a three times a week, and sure, his love life was still horrible and non-existent, but for all it counted, he didn't travel alone then.

His thoughts wandered back to the decision he once made, "take one, leave the other", and it still did no good, he broke Kagome's heart to mend Kikyo's, but things didn't go as they should have, Kikyo's life were extended more and more, far beyond those of any human known in history. And Kagome? He didn't know much about her now, in the past 50 years he only received three reports on her: one when she was born, the 2nd when she started going down the well, and the third when she stopped, he then informed Sesshomaru to forbid the cleaners from reaching to her.

Sometimes he allowed himself to imagine how her life looked like, had she passed all the tests she was ever so afraid of? Did she find a decent job? Has she met someone and started a family like his mind told him to hope for? Or did she stay loyal to at some point, like his heart unwillingly hoped. For her safety, he was hoping that she has long since forgotten about him and moved on, Kikyo never directed her hate to Kagome, so he truly believed that as long as he stays away from the island, Kikyo won't feel the need to go after Kagome.

"Give me something quick, Amigo" he said to the bartender, one of the many advantages of long life was the chance to learn languages, and while he wasn't as good as his brother or Shippo in faking the accent, it was enough for him to be able to find a common language with just about anyone. Plus, it gave him the opportunity to hide at towns which weren't tourist based, thus giving Kikyo a harder time finding him.

"oh, I see this isn't your first time in Mexico, but what brings you to our town?" the bartender said, his voice was enough to confirm Inuyasha's suspicion, an eagle demon.

"You're right, it isn't, but it is my first time here, so could you direct me to an inn?"

Inuyasha replied, slowly reaching for the knife in his pocket, staying at inns was dangerous, it was the first place that Kikyo would search, but staying at a youkai's house was perfect for him, his new youki would blend in the old one and leave him almost invisible to her senses.

"oh, sir, you must be joking, there is no inn in our town..." he started the sentence, but his eyes closely followed inuyasha's hands, the Sakki (killing intent) was quite easy for him to sense.

Too easy, the thought stroke him at last, the sakki wasn't real, it wasn't the normal 'about to commit a violent act' vibes that he normally received from criminals, the sakki was generated by touching an object with a violent history, in other words, the customer wanted him to look at his hands.

Sharp nails, general claw like look, a damn demon. It just wasn't his day.

"But of course, my friend, my house is your house, feel free to stay as long as you want."

"I'll raise a toast for you, Amigo" Inuyasha said, "just tell me, how are you called?"

"What do you mean? You've said my name already, my dear friend"

"Oh, you're called Amigo? I thought that everyone was addressing you like that just because you're Mexicans"

"Please, buddy, I must beg you to avoid forcing wrong stereotypes of us, it's bad enough that whenever I fly to the states to import Russian drinks everybody sees me and starts shouting 'Amigo, Amigo' because that's the only word they know in Spanish, and then I have to turn to everyone of them to find my dealer. So I beg of you, put that Spanish of yours into good use and speak normally"

"In that case, I'll toast for my good luck, for having someone like you as my new friend! For you, Amigo!"

------

"Can't we get it off our tail? Kagura, surely you'll be able to outmaneuver it in this plane" Shippo said.

"Idiotic fox, no matter how fast we go, that thing is gonna focus on our energy and re appear next to us, we've got to fight it" Kagura quickly answered.

"wait a second, is it patrolling the area or was it ordered to follow us?" Kagome interrupted the conversation, today's pre-mission briefing did specify that there was a difference between following spirit creatures and guarding ones when it was rat spirits, but perhaps soul snatchers were similar?

"I assume that it was given an order to patrol and follow the highest source of power, I don't think we were discovered yet. However, I fail to see how it matters for anything, Agent Kagome."

"it's basic, if we give him something of similar power to follow then he'd get of our back, I'm talking about the 101 decoy tactics, are you sure you're part of the Night Hounds?"

"that might work, A, but we can't let Kagura out of the plane and I don't have nearly enough power to fly and create a diversion"

"I don't recall giving my permission for you to keep on using that form of speech, Agent Shippo, but I guess Agent Kagome has a point"

"well, but it doesn't really matter, does it? We don't know where your brother is, so we can't lead her to him, right?"

"Kagura, while that certainly is true, I'm positive that once Kikyo reaches new Zealand then your sister will have to move out, and I'm quite sure that Agent Kanna isn't as keen on moving like you are, Kagura."

"well, too bad for her, I hope she's got the guest room ready, cuz the family is coming like a hurricane"

Two seconds after Kagura's sentence ended, Kagome understood she wasn't lying about hurricane, the hybrid aircraft was moving twice as fast as before, she saw Shippo pulling something beneath his chair, a brown bag? Was that what kagura meant by stink bombs? She watched as Shippo opened the bag and started puking into it, then she realized. The air was lower in oxygen and other gasses, which meant that the smell was much, much worse. A few seconds later, she fainted.

((( AN: moving to Kagome's P.O.V)))

_"I'm sure it's okay, Kagome-sama"_

_"You shouldn't worry this much, Kagome-san, he'll be back to you shortly"_

_Lies, utter complete lies, he didn't come back, he said that it was his responsibility to take care of her, that it was his fault that she died. Why wouldn't he at least come clean about his feelings? Just tell me what I already knew, don't hide your heart with noble words. What are you even trying to do? Make me feel less of an idiot? Are you trying to convince me that if things were different we could have made it? No thanks, mister. I should've known it all along, you didn't even try to hide it much, I guess it was all my fantasy of first love. I wonder what you really thought of me? A friend like Miroku and Sango or a bother like Shippo and Kouga? Actually, did you even consider them to be friends?_

_You were always so clear about it, and I was so blind. You always said "just tell me where the shard is, woman", how could I ever think you meant something else?_

_I shouldn't even think about it anymore, my life at that time is over, I should move on, I don't have anything left here anyway, tomorrow morning, no, tonight, I'll say goodbye to everyone, and wish him a good happy life._

_I'll just jump through the well, and everything would be back to normal, I'll be with mom and Souta again, and also with ji-chan. I wouldn't have to worry about one of my friends getting killed each day, my friends won't be all historical figures anymore… I'd finally get to live my own life as myself, no more playing as someone's dead lover._

I woke up, the bed wasn't my bed, nor was it the office couch or the one at the clinic, was I injured in last night's mission? I can't remember, Bossuke said it was a low risk mission, just a simple arrest of two rat youkais, no youkai these days had the gutts to stand up to a human, defiantly not the cowardly rats…

"just a second there, kagome" I realized something. Since when have I known the name Bossuke? my boss's face suddenly had a name attached to them, how did that happen?

I looked at the room, it could have been one of those lovely old rooms of old women, if only it wasn't completely filled up with mirrors, on the back of the door, on the walls, on the sealing, on the closet's doors, and smaller mirrors on the night stand. "probably the house of some narcissist" I thought to myself. I stepped to the washroom and splashed some water at my face, I looked down at the sink, the water were spinning down the drain, but not quite as I used to see them.

I'm not in Japan anymore

Then where am I? brazil? Austerlia? Alpha? Beta? Perhaps both?

"why did I think of that?" I asked myself, but it didn't matter, first thing I had to do was to confirm the time and location, the room had no windows, but it had some sort of natural light, I thought it was probably done by directing light through the mirrors, not much help in determination of the time. Next thing on the list, my human instincts told me that I have slept for a longer while than usual, and I was fairly hungry, making it somewhere in the late morning, perhaps ten or eleven o'clock?

_"_But what if I was captured, drugged, tortured and integrated?" I looked at my body, no needles signs or symbols of struggle, I breathed in relief, at least that was confirmed.

"Would you like some coffee, dear?"

My heart jumped, the lady was standing right next to me and I haven't heard her coming? I turned to look at her, she was older than me, long past the thirties, maybe even at the middle forties, her eyes were empty and the skin was pale, however, she was defiantly Japanese.

"No, I must decline your offer, Ms, but can you please fill me up on the details?" I asked her, then immediately wondered to myself since when was I this polite?

"oh, I guess Shippo has made some mistakes with his charms, it shouldn't have caused memory loss, what do you wish to know?" she answered.

SHIPPO?

Did I know anyone else named like this? No, it wasn't a common name any Asian language, so who did she mean? Had the mission gone so awfully wrong I had to be introduced to at least two new people?

"oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that I had to take care of Karin today, you must see her, she is as adorable as Rin, and she looks almost exactly like her, I guess you'd probably like to meet the parents later, I tell, that family has a really limited gene pool, no matter how many years pass, there's always either a Kohaku look-alike or a Sango one, but Rins are pretty rare"

Sango, Kohaku, Rin?

How did she know those names? Why were people acting so familiar with me all of the sudden? 'all of the sudden' why did I think that? Have I met others who treated me the same way?

I heard footsteps, a child was coming near, was it the Karin she mentioned?

"Kanna oba-san! I'm here"

Yes, it was a girl, and it was clear that Japanese wasn't her first language, didn't sound like Portuguese either, so it must have been some dialect of English.

Wait a moment, Kanna?

-------!-----

"So, where do you think Inuyasha will meet us? I'm guessing Berlin, he likes showing off his germen, that's the only language his better than me in…" Shippo said, Kanna had met with Inuyasha two weeks ago, he told her that he'll meet them somewhere in Europe after he takes a detour through central America.

"I don't care, we're going to take a plane to Paris, you can take Kagome to wherever you want to, but we're going to spend at least a night in Paris" Kagura tight-gripped Sesshomaru's hand.

"Paris? Inu hates Paris almost as much as he hates Rome and Venice. All the tourist think he's some damn attraction and take pictures with him.. I swear, I met him once at Rome, he was this close to attacking the pope, I had to drag him away from their and push him down to the sewers"

"Kagura, have you just said we'll take a plane? Do you have any idea what people will say? That damned prime Minster is already yagging about how those few yens she spares us each year are too good for the likes of us, I can't believe the nerve of that bitch, telling me how to run my business, I had men all over the world before her no-good far-sighted grandfather missed the US cruiser with his kamikaze jet"

"come on, you know I don't care for those stuff, I told you already that I want us to join the 20,000 feet clu…"

"Gosh, why haven't you two gotten married yet? You act like two high scholars on their first date, I feel that if I let you two off my sight for minute you'll be making out in the public restrooms"

"That's entirely his fault, he keeps saying that I'm bound to the wind and can't settle down and other crap like that, but when I bring the topic up he suddenly has migraines like there's no tomorrow"

"Marriage is overrated nowadays, in the past youkais never cared this much for it, it was only a human ritual in which the father gave away his daughter to the first young man who could take care of the fields and was old enough to drink sake without making a complete jerk out of himself. I blame the westerns for the sudden change in the way woman view marriage, filth-ing the screen with bad movies one after another, and each movie is the same"

"Don't believe a word he's saying, Shippo, he didn't argue half as much when I suggested we go on a world tour back in the sixties, he's simply afraid of commitment"

"Another American based lie, what the hell is fear of commitment? What I'm afraid of is organizing the wedding, I'm bound to forget at least three or four guests out, and they'll start some stupid financial boycott of those who were invited, and it'll be a big mess"

"Like you even care about those stuff, every time you have to meet them for more than two hours you end up calling me and shouting how much you hate, and I quote, those "filthy, garbage, low race, inferior, human trash", unless it directly affects you or the organization, you would rather have someone die by your doorstep than actually stop reading and help him. So tell Shippo the real reason why you won't marry me, or I'll tell him"

"I understand your point, Kagura, listen well, Agent Shippo, for I am going to tell this just once, the reason for which I can not marry her is simple: budget problems, the filthy humans I have to deal with everyday expect me to invite them, and each of them insists that he has so many enemies that he needs five bodyguards when he drinks coffee, and as the holder of the party, I'll be required to pay for all that security, and I can't use my men, since they're all guests in the party, so I'll to recruit them from outsider security companies, and I'll have a hard time explaining them how come so much of my guests are deformed and have tails, anyway, marriage is an expensive bitch"

"Have you thought about doing something small? Y'know, just family and friends?'

"I advice you to reconsider that, Agent Shippo, we don't have enough of neither to make the marriage legit, the best we can scrap without throwing the marriage into disorder is three guests………………….

However, speaking of the original topic, I believe he'll be staying in Sweden or Norway , he likes places with lots of trees, It's due to his living in that forest for so long, I assume"

------------------------------

"So, mister Japanese demon, what brings you to Mexico? Don't tell me it's a woman" Amigo asked Inuyasha, if some foreign demon as going to threat his life and sleep in his house, he wanted to at least know the reason.

"In a way, it is" Inuyasha replied, though he was sure that Amigo was thinking about something silly, like the kind of things Sesshomaru did with Kagura.

"You don't sound too happy about it, must be quite a woman to bring you all the way from Japan… so, is she human or another demon?"

"which one?" Inuyasha half hearted replied, "oh, she's human, I think, but probably not, more like a vengeful angry spirit"

"oh, your wife, I tell you, things like this should be resolved as soon as possible, no good running away from it, it's not like any of you are gonna die soon, so you might as well talk to her and get it over with…"

"I could have used the advice 500 years ago, you know?" Inuyasha said "while she was still saying 'you spend too much time trying to talk to those two humans' and 'stop working so much' and then 'you're thinking of that girl, aren't you?'. She wasn't so deadly back then, either" that defiantly was one of his greatest mistakes, giving Kikyo back her life was one thing, but holding that wedding? Even he could tell it wasn't the right decision, his only remorse was that he understood that only 300 years later.

"well then, you might think I'm rude for asking, but how long are you gonna stay here?"

"havn't I told you? Just for tonight, I'm going to meet an old buddy of mine tomorrow" Inuyasha shrugged, as far he considered, the word 'buddy' was another way to say bastard, "you might have heard of him, wolf demon, cocky personality, hot headed and loud mouth", Inuyasha described Kouga, finding him was the least of his problems, he and the demon wolf were never on good terms, and when Inuyasha and Sesshomaru exiled him from Japan at 1860, things went from fairly bad to absolutely worst.

"Oh, you mean Kouga? He's a regular in the bar, he comes to a late night drink usually, he's gonna be surprised that I'm closed today…"

Three thoughts awoken in Inuyasha's head, the first, that Kouga will come to the bar, second, he will sniff out Inuyasha's smell, third, he'll be coming after the smell, coming right here.

Surprisingly, Inuyasha heard a knock on the door, followed by the door breaking into small pieces.

"Where is he? Where's that bastard! Tell me now so I could kill him!"

Kouga roared at Amigo, out of the Japanese wolf youkais, he was the only one who was exiled, and he knew damn well why, he stepped forward, ready to break Inuyasha's face.

"I'm here, come outside" Inuyasha called, trying not to let his own anger take over him, knowing that he was here to ask for Kouga's help, he figured that beating the wolf up was not a good way to do so.

"why are you here? No, let me guess, Kagome died happily a few days ago, and you came here to gloat in my face about the wonderful life you had with her?" Kouga shouted at him, eyes filled with hate, he knew the reason for his exile was Inuyasha's fear of him getting together with Kagome, so as soon as Kagome was about to be born, the night hounds organization had made preparations for him to be sent on an 'exploration' ship to America, and then they blew up the ship, he couldn't leave the continent afterwards…

That was already too much for Inuyasha, he snapped.

Kouga couldn't see anything, but he had a pretty good understanding of what happened when he felt a hard punch meeting his jaw.

"Don't say something like that ever again, or next time I won't hold back" Inuyasha shouted at him, and then calmed his voice "I need your help" he whispered.

"Why should I help you? You sure as hell haven't done anything for me, other than ruining my life!"

Inuyasha dropped on his arms "it's for Kagome, she's in danger" he begged.

That one word was enough to lit Kouga's eyes, he always knew she wasn't from the feudal ages, and he planned on waiting for her to be born, but only Inuyasha knew when it was going to happen, him mentioning her name meant that she was alive, finally.

"I think Kikyo is after her" Inuyasha said.

Kouga looked at him seriously and asked "Kikyo? The woman you were involved with long before I cared? How is she still alive?".

Inuyasha stoop up and replied "do you remember what happened when me and Kagome killed Naraku? So when the shikon jewel was completed, we gave it to Kikyo, to bring her back to life, and then Kagome left back home"

"Don't lie, she didn't leave, you kicked her out of our world, just because you weren't enough of a man to let anyone else have a chance with her!"

Inuyasha turned his eyes to the ground, he knew Kouga was right, for what he did, there was no remorse.

"But still, you said she needs me now, so, how are we gonna get back to Japan? You and your brother sent me here over a hundred years ago, I spent twenty years just learning the language"

Inuyasha smirked to himself, the plan was going well so far, in a few days, he'll finally meet Kagome, "we go to the embassy, of course, and get you a passport, then, we catch a plane back to Japan, about ten hours. I assume you know what a plane is"

"don't push it, I know what a plane is, I just haven't been on one yet…" Kouga replied. "and while we're doing all that stuff, you'll have to tell what sort of trouble have you gotten my woman into".

Chapter 02 end.

Actually, about the memory loss part, that's the part I feel the worst with in the entire story, I just couldn't find any decent way to get Kagome to act the way I wanted to…

As for new characters (or ones who first appear this chapter): Amigo is an OC, I quite like him, and I've started working on his side chapter (I haven't mentioned it earlier, but the one about Bossuke will be published after chapter 04, I think), which will light up his past, his name and some information about some stuff, nothing serious, though.

Kouga is basically still Kouga, the perky wolf that I don't care for.

Kanna is a combined old woman with the annoying girl she was in the original setting, I've decided to tie her up with some information about Sango/Miroku/Rin/Kohaku, more about them will come afterwards, and if you still have questions, I'll answer them specifically.

Writing Kagura and Sesshomaru was the most enjoyable thing in this chapter, I usually write Sesshomaru as an composed smart type, but when he's with Kagura I write him as a more gentle character, and actually quite humane. It's a blast.

However, I read the 38 volume after writing this chapter, and the manga readers among you probably know how sad I felt…

That's about it, don't forget to review, since for every review I don't get, a kitten might be suffering from a cold. ACHOO!


	3. A New Land

Disclaimer: As previously noted, I'm not Rumiko Takahashi nor do I own Inuyasha.

the third chapter is here, with more of Kagome's memory block, more of Sesshomaru's crazy antics, and more of whatever's going around... read it.

Chapter 03: A New Land.

((--- again, Kagome's P.O.V, all hail the crazy woman ---))

Kanna, the girl said the name Kanna. Defiantly, there was no mistake.

Why haven't I noticed it earlier? The eyes were exactly the same as they once were, and the mirrors spread all over the house should have been a dead giveaway. I tried to calm my head from any 'Naraku is back' thoughts, telling myself that it was impossible, that we destroyed him many years ago, that the worst case scenario was that his offsprings came to the future to take revenge on me, it isn't impossible, youkai's could travel through the well, just like I could.

I tried running that idea through my mind again, it didn't make sense this time, if Kanna has truly traveled through the well, then it would have happened many years ago, shortly after Naraku's death, not years past it.

"so" I asked myself again, "What is it?".

The second option was also there, they didn't travel through time, they just lived through those 500 years just so that they could kill me, not a pleasant thought, but better than the possibility of those demons going through the family shrine and killing everybody.

Still, something was missing, where was I? why did they bring me here? I was fairly sure this wasn't Japan, I haven't felt hungry enough to justify a 12 hours trip to either Africa or south America, so that meant I was somewhere near Australia.

"no time for this", I reminded myself, I couldn't feel my gun, nor the hidden knife in my shoe, I looked down to my feet, those weren't even my shoes. I was kidnapped, that's one thing I knew for sure, so my next objective was to escape my capturer's trap, and then make contact with HQ and await further orders, they could trace me and send help, and even if that fails, at least someone would know where I was at the time of death.

"No, Kagome, don't think like that, Remember who you are" I told myself, there was no reason to give up yet, Kanna wasn't at the immediate room, I had no type of weapon, not even a quiver of arrows. The room I was in didn't have a window, but the room next to it had something of the sort, it was a magnifying glass, it had a few smaller mirrors and lenses directing light to it, and it itself spread the light to other mirrors. It was still rater early in the morning, so I had space to squeeze into between the lenses, just about enough to escape from the house without making any noise, I mentally patted myself on the shoulder, all those lenses must have had something to do with her powers, perhaps magnifying it many times over? It was the best thing to do, I told myself, get far from her stronghold, if I must be a subject to Kanna's attack, at least let it be on natural ground.

I took a look at the house, it seemed like a regular suburban household, one store high, a nice green garden, with red fences between the neighbors.

I took a second look at the neighbor's house, it had an charm against rain tied next to the door, a Japanese charm. "Great!" I screamed to myself, even if I don't know where I am, at least someone here knows Japanese, so I could get them to help me. I tried silently knocking on the back door, no answer, I looked at the windows, everything was closed, I couldn't do anything without my breaking tools kit.

"don't get too depressed, it's only one option that failed" I said to myself, if everything else fails, I could always run around the street shouting for help in English, someone ought to call a police officer on that sort of thing, right?

I started walking behind the houses, it seemed that the lane was leading to the center of town, there must be someone there who can help me, I was sure of it.

The town center was just as I expected: a lot of locals doing their locally oriented shopping, it meant that I stood out in the crowd, I took comfort in the fact that at least my cloths were fit for the occasion.

I spotted a news stand, it was all written in English, "New zealand news" was the best seller, "I guess I'm in NZ then" I said to myself, at least that was clear. The date on the paper indicated that I didn't miss out on any days, except last night, which I still didn't know what happened in.

"public phone, cellular phone, any kind of phone". Nothing. Not a single communication device, what was wrong with this place? A woman entering a fruit shop. Some guy reading something at another newspaper stand. And a teenager standing next to a vending machine.

The teenager looked Asian, at least that, I knew it didn't have any real meaning, but perhaps I could pose off as a troubled lost woman and use him to get to a phone. "won't work" I told myself "maybe if I was five years younger, or he was ten years older… he'll probably ask me for help if we engage conversation", just then, he started walking towards me.

"So you're finally up, ah? Did Kanna take you on a tour in the city?'

Well, he spoke Japanese, and he mentioned Kanna, didn't take more than half a second to figure out he was one of the badguys. Escape routes didn't matter at that time, he already noticed me and I didn't have any real knowledge about the town roads, so I just ran, away from him while trying not to return to Kanna's place.

-------------

"Where did Shippo go?" Kagura asked while still looking at the kites in the air, as always, anything capable of flying fascinated her.

"It seems that Agent Kagome got over the mental block she has been experiencing lately, she left Kanna's house and is now running away from Agent Shippo, I assumed that convincing her to come with us would be easier if us two weren't around" Sesshomaru answered, barley moving one muscle face.

"liar. You just wanted to stay with me a bit longer"

----/---------

"How many times do I need to repeat myself? Dog face, I know what I'm supposed to do, your ideas aren't very complicated to follow, you know" Kouga shouted at Inuyasha, it turned out that he wasn't as fine with planes as he though he would be, so ever since getting down from it, he had to relay on Inuyasha's help even for walking. Of course, that made him even angrier than usual.

"and, don't forget, A. people are talking a different Japanese than what you remember, B. Tokyo is one of largest cities in the world, there are gonna be a lot of smells, and C. raise your youki as much as you can, that way, Kagome will come looking for you soon." If anyone else would have seen Inuyasha now, he would have known something wasn't right with the big smile on his face. Kouga, however, failed completely to notice it.

"what I don't understand yet, dog stench, is what you are gonna do while I'll be meeting Kagome" he asked.

"how many times do I have to repeat myself, I'm going to one of my brother's offices, it's right next to the airport, to secure our way out of Japan, as I told you earlier, twenty western dragons are coming here to attack Kagome. Since you can dash faster than me, you need to get Kagome here as fast as possible so we could take her to Mexico. What part of this didn't you understand?" Inuyasha asked, faking anger at the wolf.

"I'll bring Kagome back with me in less than an hour, dog shit, so be ready" Kouga said to Inuyasha, just before starting his run.

Inuyasha turned backwards, secretly whistling to himself, had this been a movie, this would be the part where a building collapses behind him along with a gang of evil do-ers which were after his hide.

But since this wasn't a movie, he could only look at it as what it was, a plot that earned him about a day or two before Kikyo reaches him, and would make Kouga even angrier than before.

"not that I care, I won't be visiting Japan for a few good years" he smiled to himself, he walked to the counter, next stop for him was Hag.

-------------+-----------

again, Kagome's P.O.V – I'm gonna keep doing it for a while, it seems)

When is the right time to scream for help?

I never thought about it, I wonder if anyone did? Maybe some guy wrote a paper on the subject for the university sociology department? Is it appropriate to scream for help when someone you don't know approaches you? Maybe it's just someone from high-school or an old neighbor? Won't screaming for protection not only cause them embarrassment, but also might get them in trouble? And what about one-way relationships? Not stalkers or anything, but what if you happen to see a co-workers family member walking down the street? You know them from pictures and from stories, but they don't know you at all.

Does the place matter? Of course screaming in a dark parking lot makes sense, and so does screaming in backdoor alleys at nighttime, but what about the middle of the street? And if I'm in a different country with a different language? Won't people think I'm just a crazy tourist with some friends and we're just fooling around?

What about size difference? Can a 6'7 man call for help if he's running from a 5'2 man? Can an adult woman plead for protection from someone who isn't likely at the legal age to even drive a car yet?

In short - if I scream, would someone help?

Probably not. Life now was different than how it was 500 years ago. No helpful strangers around, no trustworthy lecherous monks, no Inuyasha.

The boy kept coming closer, and yet, nobody seemed to notice him, I tried running, he kept walking but somehow the gap between us was shrinking, "now's the time to stand up to him" I told myself. Launching myself on him and trying to beat him senseless was one option, but it was the final choice, so I had to secure myself a weapon first. A gun or a bow if possible, but even a big stick would be enough, I decided.

I kept running, the gap between us was now less than ten meters, meaning that now was my final chance, I jumped into a house ware store, pushing some people while doing so, I ran to the kitchen section. Around me were an impressive collection of spoons and pots, had this been another situation, I would have picked up some for my mother, but for now, my attention was focused on the knives section. Over thirty kinds of knives, with sizes that vary between the average 'get food on the fork' knife to the 'fork over the money, or I'll stab you' knives, I picked up the later one.

One second later, the boy finally came to me, I took a moment to inspect him, he was clearly much younger than me, wearing some lame jacket that had the manufactures name on it, he had quite a long hair, not as long as mine, but it covered his ears and half of his face.

"Not again, Kagome" ha started saying "drop the knife and lets speak on this peacefully". I looked to my sides, the other customers have run away from the department by now, I guess they figured that staying in the same space as a woman with a knife was a bad idea.

"Please put it down, you should now by now that I can disarm yo…" I stopped him from talking with a stab, he managed to move a bit so I only got his shoulder, "never mind" I told myself "next time I'll get him".

----

"Sesshomaru speaking, state your will" the dog demon answered the cell phone as soon as it rang, usually he would let it ring at least four times, but today he felt that each ring was taking too much precious time, so he answered immediately.

"…."

"I'm fully aware of that, Agent Kanna, but I was under the impression that it was under you guidance".

"……."

"Honestly, You know I also like that family, but you shouldn't have let her out of your sight. The girl seems to have lost her mind".

"…,………,.."

"Agent Shippo has gone to take care of her, I believe they'll be back as soon as he gets her to face reality".

"…"

"I'm positively sure that he can handle her, she's only human". He closed the phone.

-----0-----

Shippo has managed to dodge the next strike, and also the one afterwards, but the forth slash cut him again, this time his hand. It became quite clear for him that without putting his all into it, he wouldn't be able to disarm her and take control of Kagome.

On the other edge of the knife, Kagome was also getting worried, she had already cut the boy two times, and yet he didn't seem to be experiencing any serious panic symptoms, the look in his eyes was still clear.

By the time she began the fifth slash the boy took a step backwards, usually a step backwards meant that the enemy was looking for an escape route, but Kagome sensed it was different this time. Not just sensing by the look in his eyes and the movements he made, this time she sensed something else, something that she couldn't put in words yet.

Shippo put his hand on his forehead, searching for that one leaf he's been using for the last few years, he knew that it'll crumble to dust once he takes it out of his body, and that he'll have to spend a few days hiding his appearance until would get hold of a leaf with similar power. But in this situation, he decided that having his full power was a necessity.

Kagome watched the boy taking some object out of his head and crumbling it, the sensation just got ten times worse than earlier, she couldn't tell exactly what it was, but most likely a bad omen. A moment later, she nearly dropped the knife when she saw the boy's body starting to change, his hair was getting longer, his ears turned almost into those of a beast, and suddenly he was holding Japanese short sword.

"A youkai" she said to herself, and by the looks of it, a rather large one, perhaps a tanuki or another small mammal, maybe even a cat. This turn of events wasn't what she expected, she wasn't train to deal with youkais on her own, nobody in her unit was.

"I guess it's time for my feudal ages experience to prove useful" she told herself, she tried remembering what she did with the bow and arrows, somehow enchanting them with mystical power, it usually proved to be more than enough to pierce the skin of any youkai.

But now, she reminded herself, not only has it been so long since she last done so, she was also missing the weapon she had confidence in. "no, what am I thinking!" she screamed in her own mind, "I can do this with just a knife, my years of working for the night hounds were not in vein", those thoughts gave her confidence, she felt the strangely nostalgic power purging to the knife she held.

"all I need is one hit" she thought, one hit was enough, either to completely eradicate him or at least to make it clear for him that she was dangerous and cause him to retreat.

Again, on the sharp edge of the knife, things didn't look as good. Shippo never considered himself to be a fighting type, he could handle his own against humans by tricking them with illusions, and most youkais who were alive these days were either weaker than him or afraid of getting on the night hound's organization bad side. But now, against a human with vast amounts of spiritual power, he could only relay on his physical abilities, which so far seemed to be countered by the girl usage of the knife.

He tried analyzing his position again, he held now a short sword, and she had a knife. It gave him one chance, he decided to swing the sword and once she blocks the attack to punch her, he hoped he had enough strength to make that one punch count.

Kagome reacted on pure instinct when the sword came, it was a bet, she knew very well that the knife put her at a disadvantage when it came to clashing weapons with him, if this was any normal situation, then her knife would break and the next slash of the youkai will cut through her skin.

This, however, was not a normal situation, the moment the weapons met, a strange yet familiar light emerged, when the light faded, only her knife was there, the sword has vanished. She got ready for a last stab, this time to kill the youkai, but this time, the knife only cut through the air. The youkai has already escaped, leaving his jacket behind.

--------------

"This wasn't supposed to happen" Shippo screamed at himself, the original plan was clear as daylight. Meet Kagome at Japan, have a mushy-mushy reuniting with her, fly to Kanna on Kagura's menace machine, and then fly to meet with Inuyasha, where Kagome will have an even more emotional reunion. Fighting with her wasn't what he expected, and defiantly not losing to her.

"Sesshomaru! Kagura!" he ran towards them, earning lots of suspicious eyes, not just because of the shouting in Japanese, but mostly because he now seemed completely youkai.

"What happened, why isn't the girl with you" Kagura was the first to inquire, he told them the story quickly, even the shameful part of him losing.

"Silence, I trust that you have kept the cell phone in your jacket, did you not?" Sesshomaru asked the question, Shippo nodded in agreement. The dog youkai took out his phone and started dialing, somewhere in Japan, a green toad youkai answered a call.

"Jaken speaking, how may I serve you?"

"Sesshomaru here, get your ass off the phone and let me speak to Bossuke, I believe that he should be able to already"

"Immediately, Sesshomaru-sama"

"Agent Bossuke here, what should I do, commander?"

"…."

"I see, I'll have my phone next to me"

"….,.."

"Of course, if Higurashi won't call, I will"

----------

(Kagome's P.O.V – when will it end?)

The boy left, it was my victory, for a moment, I felt some sort of happiness. Then reality kicked in like the bitch it was, police sirens.

I had no time to waste, I picked up the boys jacket, he had a wallet, a breaking in kit and a cellular phone in it, I took them all.

I searched the floor; I figured that there had to be a fire exit somewhere, I found one on the right end of the store. I used my newly acquired tools and picked the lock open, it opened up to a side street, luckily it was void of people. I took a second turn into an even smaller side street, then I took the cell phone and started dialing, the number was the emergency number of my commanding officer back in Japan, I hoped that he could provide me reinforcements.

"Agent Higurashi here. I need your help, Bossuke commander" I whispered to the phone.

"Higurahsi, I'm aware of your situation, there some reliable friendlies very close to your position" the ever confident voice of my boss, I wasn't surprised the least when he said he knew what was going on, but something bugged me, he sounded a bit dosed off, I wondered whether he was taking medications or something of that sort.

"are you alright, commander? You don't seem too healthy" I questioned him.

"I'll be just fine, it's you who you should be worrying about. Tell me, Higurashi, since when did you know my name?"

I couldn't find an answer, I opened my moth but no sound came out.

"Exactly. You don't remember anything that happened last night; but some info does pop up in your head, it's probably from the shock. I've verified it a minute ago. You didn't remember that we were attacked last night and I was injured".

"We were attacked? By who? When? Why?" I spitted the questions before I realized it.

"I don't know, my officer won't tell me, and he's not a man that I'm planning to ask the same question twice. However, it might have something to do with the promotion we had planned for you, it involved exposing you to some secret sections of the organization"

Secret sections? How could there any secret sections inside a secret organization? Wasn't every section of it secret by default?

"What about the friendlies, sir?" I asked.

"Listen, Higurashi, as you most likely know by now, you're at New Zealand, from what I've been told, it was merely a night stop, so there shouldn't be any hostiles there. I repeat, the area is hostiles-free."

"that isn't true, sir, I've been attacked a few moments ago" I almost screamed to him.

"I'm fully aware of that, he was one of our own men, your currently using the phone you got from his jacket, right?"

I couldn't say a word.

"I'll take that as a yes, he told that to the big boss, the big boss called me and told me to expect your call"

The big boss? He couldn't have meant the commander of the night hounds, could he? I thought it was ridiculous, it was the first time I've even heard about him, what would he have to do with me?

"anyway" he continued "you should reach out to our safe house, it belongs to a youkai" he silenced for a moment. "Kagome, this is gonna come on you as quite a surprise, but most of the higher ups in the business are youkais themselves, so get used to it, we can't have you attacking any of them".

Youkais? I've been told that most youkais have been wiped out; the only ones which remained were either criminals or under surveillance.

Then it struck me, they weren't under surveillance, they were watching as surveillance, the most influencing youkais were running Japan from the shadows, and they used smaller youkais to watch over humans.

'"Wait a second" I told myself, "then is the toad youkai in my desk job monitoring me?".

"How long have you known about it. Bossuke?" I asked.

"Long enough, Higurashi, long enough. Now listen, the youkai you should meet is called Kanna, she is a bit older than you. Oh, and it seems that she is related to the big boss girlfriend, so don't get on her bad side" it was then that I stopped listening, I dropped the phone to the ground.

I was betrayed, again.

The sirens silenced out, perhaps they realized it would only alert me, perhaps something bigger happened and they had to divert their attention, I started walking. I didn't know where to, I hardly cared, it seemed that the universe didn't forget about me after all, existence remembered to kick you once in a while, and if it involved shaking your entire world, even better.

/---\\

Inuyasha was getting restless, by his count, his brother should arrive in Europe anytime between the upcoming night to the next week, and then they still had at least a week until they would find him. "So" he tried doing the math, "anything between next week and the next month", normally, he would have think that if he managed to live 500 years without so much of hearing of the girl, another month won't make a difference. But now, when the time was so close, every hour seemed like a day.

He spent that past 450 years traveling, first it was to establish connections with youkais in Japan, then he had business in China, that was the first time he left Japan. Since then, he spent more time in planes and on ships more than he ever spent at one place.

The first few centuries out of Japan were great, he felt like a kid again, he and Shippo explored half the world together, they would have usually stayed in one of the suburbs, and spend a year or two just living like humans in the city. It kept them entertained for quite a while, until WW2, when Shippo had to return to Japan to help rebuild the country, and Inuyasha spent time aboard trying to influence as many people as possible to contribute to its rebuilding.

Now, all of the memories seemed void of meaning, Hag, a city where he spent almost five years of his life, was now limited to the area around the airport, an agent would come, they'll say the code words to each other, and then the agent will leave, but Kagome would stay there with him.

There would be a lot of explaining to do, of course, tell her about the past 500 years, tell her that he's sorry, and tell her that her life is in danger once again, because of him.

"What am I about to tell her?" He asked himself, should he just say "hey, Kagome, you might not remember me or believe I'm real, but I'm the hanyou from 500 years ago, last time we met I threw you back home so I could get married. But anyway, I'm still alive, and my wife decided to go after you and try to kill you, but don't worry, I've got an army of secret agents to protect us, but they won't do us any good, since Kikyo can kill just about anything, you and me included"

He told himself quietly that this wasn't what she deserved, if life had any sense of fairness, then Kagome would have forgotten about him and been married by now, living happily in her shrine with two kids and a cat. He had no right to drag her into this mess again.

Chapter 03 - end.

next chapter should be a blast, alot of flashbacks, and reality sinking on on Kagome's mind. also, the end of the annoying ammensia.

however, seeing as how i've got zero reviewes to two chapters, my motivation to update the story has lessened, and if things continue as they are now, who knows when the next chapter will come.. The solution is quite simple, it involves nothing more than pressing the mouse and then the keyboard, I urge you to do so.


	4. Clearing one's head

Ooh, I've finally gotten some reviews, so the story is updated!

Now, one of my favorites, chapter four, with the complete insight of Kagome's malfunctioning brain, and also some flashbacks!

Chapter 04: Clearing one's head.

(Kagome's P.o.V – it's still not over, apparently)

I'm not sure how long I sat there on the park bench, it had to be at least a few hours, the sun was already setting, I replayed what happened all over again.

When I woke up, the woman I saw was defiantly Kanna, her appearance was older, but it was her. But how did I get there? Thinking back, the house seemed well cared for, so she probably hadn't left it to kidnap me. So who did?

The boy who I met earlier? A possibility, but seemed unlikely, he couldn't have done it alone, if I managed to escape his grasp today, then I could have done so when we first met, it meant the list of suspects was growing bigger.

And then there was Bossuke, I still couldn't recall why he said he was attacked, but if our years of knowing each other meant anything, then he was speaking the truth.

I heard someone speaking Japanese, I turned to the source of the voice, it was a young couple with a kid, the kid looked familiar to me. Then I remembered, the girl's name was Karin, I met her this morning, at Kanna's place, she did seem awfully similar to someone. I tried envisioning her in a traditional kimono and replacing her neatly hair with one that grows wild. It struck me immediately, Rin.

Did she also travel in time? No, I already reached the conclusion it wasn't possible, and the girl here seemed much more polite than I remembered Rin to be, so this Karin girl must have been a descendant of her, at least that made some sense.

One issue was clear, at least, now it was time for me to connect whatever dots I had.

First, I was kidnapped from Japan, and brought over to Kanna, it seemed that Kanna actually lives here in New Zealand, so the kidnapping probably was never meant to end here, it was only a stop. Second, Karin was related to Rin, but then I remembered what Kanna said, she mentioned something about Sango and Kohaku, I turned my eyes to the mother of the girl, she did have some Sango-like traits. Did it mean that she also had some of sango's blood in her? No, that was just wrong, I corrected myself, the girl had Kohaku's blood in her, so it was natural that she shared some traits with his sister.

So far, so good. Rin and Kohaku married in the past, sounds reasonable, they were a tide close to each other, so it wasn't impossible. If so, then how did Kanna fit in? did she look over the family? She said 'every generation', so she might have bee watching over them. But why? She had no connection with Rin, but maybe it was for Kohaku?

No. it didn't make sense, Kohaku helped us kill Naraku, she wouldn't want to help him, would she?

Then again, Kagura was also created from Naraku, and she tried escaping from his grasp, so maybe Kanna was the same? When I thought about Kagura I realized something, Bossuke said that Kanna was the sister of the commander's girl friend, which meant Kagura was involved in this business as well, it did make sense. She could fly, and if she managed to improve her speed enough, than she could have kidnapped me with her abilities and bring me here without going through the airport.

"But who is Kagura with?" I tried asking myself, who would fit that crazy woman and be important enough to run the night hounds? I honestly didn't know her very well, but I guessed it was a youkai…

"Can't be Kouga, he hates her" but who knows, maybe he fell in love with her? not likely, but still an option.

"Defintally not Sesshomaru, that bastard couldn't love anyone" at least on that I was clear.

"Not Inuyasha, it can't be him" it couldn't be, at least I hoped so.

"That leaves? Shippo…" well, that thread of thought lead me to the conclusion I don't know the identity of whoever she was with.

But Shippo, I recalled hearing that name lately. Did the fox youkai still live? Probably, since he had Inuyasha to take care of him, at least I hoped so. Did youkai live that long anyway? Maybe Kagura and Kanna were special cases since they were detached from a bigger youkai? It's no use thinking about that, I decided.

The only thing which was important was to get my head in the right track, preferably by suddenly remembering what happened last night.

Well, nothing came back; it meant that I had to continue connecting the dots.

Bossuke said I was in a hostile free environment, did it mean that I attacked an innocent bystander which happened to be a youkai? No, he came to me, which meant that he recognized me, and he did know my name, so he was also a part of this. Also he mentioned Kanna. Did she mention him? I tried thinking back to this morning, everything was so blurry in my memory, but she did say a name, now, If only I could recall what it was…

Shippo.

Ok, this was getting a little out of hand. Kanna, Kagura and Shippo, too many familiar youkai names to suck it up as coincidence. The picture from the dots I've been connecting was a bit clearer now, it stated quite clearly that I'm, in fact, an idiot.

/\

"So, that will be four tickets to London, sir?" the receptionist girl handed him the tickets, this was new sight for her, the two who ordered the tickets weren't from new Zealand, she could that for sure, but it didn't seem they were on vacation either, else they would have tickets for the flight back home. But that wasn't for her to matter in, she knew this not only because she was told many times not to ask the customers any questions, but also because the man seemed to be one who doesn't like his authority being judged.

"Too bad", she thought to herself, the man was amazingly handsome in her eyes, and he didn't have a marriage ring, but one look at woman next to him told her that any further thought about that subject was pointless.

"Why are we going to London?" Kagura asked, implying again that if things were up to her, they would have been going to someplace more romantic.

"It's easier moving inside the mainland, so I want to get through with that island as soon as possible" Sesshomaru answered, touring over Britain would take no more than 3 days if they got separated, and once in Europe, they could cover more ground.

"But doesn't Kagome speak English? It can be quite troublesome if she runs away there, if we go to Paris or Madrid we won't have to worry about it…" Kagura replied, now completely convincing Sesshomaru that she had different plans for the trip.

"That possibility isn't one we can overcome by just being at a different country, we'll have to confirm that Shippo can convince Agent Higurashi and make her realize her past errors".

/\\\\

"What d'hell is she doing?" Shippo asked himself, 'this time' he said to himself, 'she won't get me like that'. But words aside, he knew very well that if Kagome attitude hasn't changed, than nor would the outcome of any future match between the two, and that meant that this time, he'd have to keep the atmosphere at a non-violent level.

"There she is, sitting on a park bench" Kanna said, the mirrors in her house weren't only because of her fashion taste, they served for quite a variety of purposes, and today they were used for the tracking of the Japanese agent Higurashi Kagome.

"Got it, I'll get to her in a few minutes, can I borrow some clothes, a hat maybe?" He asked, his appearance now drew stares while walking down the street, and even though the seal on his powers were removed, in this day and age, youki didn't have as much meaning as it used to.

"I have some of Sesshomaru's clothes in the back, maybe something will fit you, but before you leave, let me tell you one thing: Karin is at the park right now, so you better not get her into troubles, got it?"

Shippo sighed, he always believed he was born 10 years too late, if he had those ten years, he might have had developed enough power and experience to actually be the one threatening other demons.

"well, that might make things easier, she won't try to kill me if she sees that Karin knows me, right?"

"She won't, you are in your true form now, so get out" Kanna said.

So he did. Started walking straight out the door, now with two additional layers of clothing on him, felt his skin burning like hell.

Less than ten minutes later, he was standing next to park entrance, he stared at her, she had yet to notice him. "At least she didn't improve that much with her spirit energy" he said to himself, from what he remembered, Kagome had as much power as Kikyo did, and had she learned to control it, things could get even worse.

A second before he entered the park, Karin walked over to Kagome. At the same moment, he was glad he was in the youkai form, now his hearing was good enough to hear the conversation.

"Hel-hello" the small girl stuttered in Japanese, "you're also from Japan, right one-san?", Shippo sighed again, her parents were letting her watch too much movies from the homeland, nobody should address others like that anymore..

"Yes, I'm also from Japan, just like you Karin-chan" Kagome cursed herself the moment she finished the sentence; she wasn't supposed to let the girl know she knew her name.

"did you come with Shippo and Kagura?" the girl asked, this confirmed Kagome's suspicion, Kagura was the one to kidnap them, and a youkai named Shippo was also involved, but to the question of whether it was the Shippo she once knew, she still didn't have any answer.

"I think so, was there someone else with us?" Kagome asked, child innocence was good in some occasions; young ones were quite easy to reveal any information. With this question, she could verify exactly how many people were involved in the kidnapping.

"Maybe slim-sword nii-san was with you, he never talks to me… but his brother came by a few weeks ago, and he took the big sword Kanna ba-san hided in the secret room"

For Kagome, this meant that she was up against either four or five unknowns. From which she defeated one.

"Karin, your mother is looking for you"

Kagome heard the voice coming from behind the bushes, she recognized it immediately, memories of the previous fight rushed to her mind, she cursed herself for not keeping the knife from before.

"And what is your name? you usually don't have the sword out on the open, so I'm guessing you're the one she called Shippo, aren't you?" she still didn't move from the bench.

"Exactly, Kagome. It looks like you're having a mental block of yesterday's events, so I'll have to go through everything again"

"Why should I trust you?" she asked.

"I don't ask for your trust, I'm only asking you to hear me out" he took something from beneath his clothes and gave it to her, "Will this be enough? Now you're the one with the weapon" he said.

"go ahead, but I'll be the one asking the questions" she answered, taking a look a the sword, from what she could tell, it dated back about 400 years ago, cold steel, probably an early work of some famous blacksmith. "First, how did I get involve in this situation?".

"ya' ain't holding back, auh? I would much rather wait with this question to the end…" he looked at her, her eyes told him that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"Well, but if you insist.. a few centuries ago, a deal was made between one of the higher ups in the chain of commands and, let's call it, a rather important person…."

"Wait a second, what do you mean centuries ago? And how are you connected to the NH?" she growled at him.

"Listen, I can only answer one thing at a time, so let me finish the goddamn answer"

"Sorry, go ahead"

"As I was saying, a deal was made; in order to keep that person from attacking something which was rather precious to him he had to leave Japan about a hundred years ago. But last month, a sudden accident made him return to Japan, and that triggered the events which you are part off"

"I don't get it, how can anyone live for centuries?"

"as you probably know by now, the NH was created and is ran by youkais such as myself, we have some lingering business from ages ago" he answered, trying as hard as possible not to mention any name that might set Kagome off.

"Why do youkais care so much about what happens to humans? Should you be the ones we are hunting?"

"yes, that was originally the cause, as you remember, back in the feudal ages there were many murderous youkais, so the older of the two brothers decided that a cleansing was in order, I think the exact words were 'I find this situation unbearable, get my useless brother over here so I could beat some meaning into his life', yes, that was what he said, and just like that, everything started". That type of sentences suddenly sounded very familiar to Kagome, she couldn't help but wonder if she had met that person.

"and you joined because? And what of Kagura and Kanna, why did they join?"

"oh, that's easy, family relations, Kagura was with the older brother, Kanna decided that it would make Kohaku's life a bit easier, and for me it was something to do".

This was getting tiresome for Shippo, he wondered how much time it would take her to ask about Inuyasha. He thought he inserted more than enough clues to tip her off; yes Kagome seemed to completely ignore every single one of them.

"So again, why am I here" She asked.

"as you probably know by now, we stopped here to get information from Kanna, the others are securing tickets for Europe as we speak"

"I won't go with you, you can't force me to board a flight, the security will stop you from doing so"

"listen, Kagome… You know what? Just screw it, I'm tired of explaining, Inuyasha needs you now more than ever, so when you get your mind set, we'll be waiting at Kanna's place" Shippo started walking away, his walking turned into running, and Kagome was left alone in the park.

Inuyasha?

------

_"I still don't understand this thing, Sesshomaru, since when did you take this much interest in humans?" he asked, the idea itself was good, but too charitable for Inuyasha to believe that his brother didn't have something else in mind._

_'Silence, I shall explain it again, if you wish, during the past 100 years, more humans were killed by youkais than in our fahter's entire reign, which lasted more than 2000 years, as far as Myoga can date"_

_"and, since when do you care about those things? Besides, most of them were killed by Naraku and his actions, and now the bastard is dead, so what's the point?"_

_"The point is what you're missing, I have spoke to Myoga and Totousai, they're both convinced that I'm not holding on to my duties as the crown prince of the western lands, normally, I wouldn't care about such things. But knowing our father, I don't believe he expected me to go around reviving hundreds of people when he entrusted this sword to me. Therefore, there was a deeper meaning to it, which I would like to know"._

_"So what are you thinking? That through righteous deeds enlightenment would come and enrich your mind? Don't give me that crap, Sesshomaru."_

_"I'm not done explaining myself, Inuyasha. Tell me, before Tensaiga, have you believed that it was possible to bring someone back to life? I mean truly back to life, not by soul depositing or necromancery"_

_"ahhhm… no."_

_"So did I, but Tensaiga proved me wrong, yet despite it's power, it cannot bring the same person back to life twice, I would like to hear what reasoning you present to this"_

_"I'm not sure, perhaps cosmic balance?" Inuyasha suggested._

_"I forbid you from speaking such foolishness, why is it fine to revive a person once but not twice? The reason for this is within our father's tusk itself, the sword was created with the limitation"_

_"And for what reason did our father do so? Knowing you, I'm assuming you have an idea in mind"_

_"I do so indeed, our swords are twin swords, yet they were given to the both of us. I believe that since you were given the sword with the destructive power, it will be folly to assume our father wished for us to fight over them"_

_"So? He probably decided to give the best swords to his sons, but because he wasted one tusk on sealing the dragon, he couldn't have made a pair for each of us"_

_"Inuyasha, I urge you to refresh you memory, the swords were given to us before the time he fought the dragon, while he had his teeth intact. I also must remind you that the type of tooth used doesn't matter, even your back tooth is enough to deploy the Tetsugia's complete power, had he wanted, he could have created any amount of similar swords."_

_"Still not following, is there a point to this theorizing? And what does it have to do with ruling over Japan?"_

_"Inuyasha, you fool. Must I spell this out for you? Our father was the ruler of this land, and he entrusted us to keep on the safe guarding of it, me as the king, you as the general. So far I have discovered but one ability of the Tensaiga. Compared with the Tetsuaiga, which has numerous forms, if I must take over the position of this land's ruler, then so shall I do, it's all in order to reveal the true abilities of my sword'_

_"Couldn't you say so earlier? I was getting this discomforting feeling that you might be developing even more of a conscious. What did you have in mind?"_

_"I think the first thing that must be done is to make sure that there are no youkais able to defy us, so I would like to request you and your wife to travel around and verify so, if you meet one, destroy him"_

_"I suppose I could convince Kikyo to do so…" this time, Inuyasha hesitated. _

_About twenty years later, a message arrived from Inuyasha, apparently, he met with Kohaku and Rin while they're journeying to Sesshomaru himself. The news were as expected_

_"I understand, has he mentioned anything else about the Chinese youkais?" Sesshomaru asked the boy, though boy would now be an inappropriate term to describe the old man, who has long since reached his 50's._

_"yes, Sesshomaru-dono, he said it wasn't confirmed yet, but the invaders were equipped with a new form of weaponry, he said it wasn't powerful enough to take him down, but that the appearance of it is worrying" despite the difference in appearance and the years of knowing each other, for_ _Kohaku, Sesshomaru was still his father in law, and a damn protective one._

_"I have suspicions which need to be answered, Kohaku, has my brother mentioned the name of the weapon used?"_

_"uhm, yes, but the word didn't sound familiar to me, I think it was called gunpowder, or something like that"_

_"as I feared.." that confirmed his doubts, the term wasn't new for him, so far it has surfaced in few different areas of Japan, when it did, he dispatched Inuyasha or Kagura to deal with it and erase all evidence for it's existence. And yet, after a while, be at months or years, it was there again, different people, each of them sure he was the first to construct the device, and most of them thought it fit to be used against youkais. Spears, Arrows and Swords were never a real problem to most youkai's, the power behind the weapon was dependant on the physical strength of the man using it, or in the case of holy man, the spiritual power._

_Gunpowder was different, even a child could use it to attack, and it's power was enough to wound even Inuyasha and Kagura, when he considered the obvious ability of humans to improve the quality of weapons, he quickly reached the conclusion that within a century or so, a new model of the weapon will be able to inflict grave wounds on any youkai._

_Obviously, that was something he couldn't allow to continue, but the news from Inuyasha meant that it wasn't his choice to make, not anymore._

_"Kohaku" He said, the boy was one of the best contact personal he had, losing him would be a shame._

_"yes, Sesshomaru-dono?" the old man asked._

_"I have but one final mission to you, Kohaku, the next time you meet Kagura or Inuyasha, you must tell them that I wish to speak with them, explain to them that this is a first class order which cannot be ignored by any means. And…" the second part of the sentence was much harder for him to say, but the news proved this was the only possible outcome, "from this day forward, the kingdom of the western lands has never existed, erase all records of it and never utter a word of it. Instead, tell my brother that the he now belongs in the night hounds"._

_That was the last time Sesshomaru was seen by mere peasants of the land, several years from that day, the legendary battle of Sekigahara begun, and in that battle, 90 of Japan's youkais were killed._

_/again, flashback, but different time\\\_

_Kagome looked at the scrolls next to her, written by two agents known as 'Tails' and 'Darkness', they contained what came to be known as the true history of Japan during the past 500 years, even if only 20 of what was written there was true, it meant that about 80 of what she knew so far was false._

_According to what was written, the Sekigahare battle wasn't a mere change of the Shogunate, but rather a NH planned war against the youkais which roamed the earth._

_Obviously, most people would consider that a complete lie, secret organization or not, youkais were only legends of the past, the people of Japan believed in technology, not magic._

_However, for Kagome, tales of youkai were once part of her daily life, so at least that obstacle was clear, youkais existed at the past, and according to the scrolls, some were still alive._

_"that makes a bit sense" she thought to herself, at least some of the creatures known as youkais were beings that surfaced by human emotions, so of course they'll still be around._

_'see notes at the ending for youkai family trees'_

_If there was one thing she didn't expect to see there, it was a glossary, she absent mindedly looked at it and read aloud._

_"Ant youkais… last known population, 50,000." She never even heard of ant youkais, and there was such a large number of them living today? She read the next names, until she reached a name she had a vague memory of._

_"Abi-hime, bird youkai princess, killed at NH -65" Abi-hime, Kagome recalled that name, the bird was also being manipulated by Naraku, he gave her more power to attack villages and suck out blood, for some reason, the NH-65 meant that exact date was unknown, but it happened 65 years prior to the establishment of the night hounds._

_"still, knowing about her, it mean they had a good information network, even in those days" Kagome thought to herself, she looked at the scroll again, this time, looking for other familiar names._

_Naraku wasn't there, nor was Kagura or Kanna. She searched for the dog youkais reference, it was empty, she tried looking for Kikyo's name, the scroll mentioned her death by a demon and the burning of the shikon no tama. But kagome knew those events happened before she came to that time. Inuyasha's name wasn't there either._

_"Higurashi! Put the scroll down, your first mission was decided. You're going to a collection with the shit-heads from the finance division" a man ordered, he was her newly appointed boss, aged at around 45, probably came from Hokkaido, that was all she knew about him._

_"What's a collection?" She asked, the rest of the order was clear, the finance division was the largest one in the organization, billions of yen passed through the organization each year, and someone had to conceal those tracks. Despite it's value to the NH, the finance division men were considered to be the lowest, above 60 of them were failed applicants that couldn't handle the job well. "I'm not going to end up there" she decided._

_"Collection, funds raising events, protection money, call it anyway you want, you go to a community of youkais, they pay up the tax, you leave. It's a field trip, you won't even have to talk, just stand there and look like you're keeping watch of them" he said. _

_"And what if they don't pay? What do we do then?" Kagome asked, she felt that mob tactics were doomed to failure when applied on races with fighting abilities above the average human._

_"In that case, you still leave, and the cleaners will come tomorrow and take care of the business." He answered, Kagome didn't know who the cleaners were, but the tone of voice left no space for mistakes._

_"I'll be on my way then" she said._

_Two hours later, she arrived at the destination, accompanied by two men and another woman, they were slightly older than her, none of them seemed to particularly like the job. She understood why everybody treated the finance division they way they did, crappy people, crappy job, and anyone who met with them had to face the thought the he too, may one day become one those men._

_The youkai community was what she expected either, Kagome told herself no to expect a green village scenery, as the location was in the outskirts of Tokyo, but still, she wasn't prepared to what she saw. A complex of tunnels inside a dumpster, she thought that at least bunny youkais would have some sort of aesthetic, but these bunnies looked like the only carrots they had ever eaten were from Hiroshima._

_One of them run towards them, holding a cloth that seemed to be white once, but now it was blackish-grayish in color. The man looked at them, and suddenly stopped his run. _

_"Oh, it's only you" he said, looking at one of the man._

_"Did you expect anyone else?" the collector asked._

_"our scouts said that someone with power is coming, I guess he's out of shape if he can't tell your odor by now… we were worried that you are the cleaners" the youkai answered, as far as Kagome could tell, he was probably the elder._

_"Well, I'm not a cleaner anymore, should I ask a doctor to come by and check that guy's nose? I know a few who practice as vets for their second job…"_

_"He'll be fine, I hope, we couldn't afford the doctor anyway, not with all the taxes you charge" the elder said, one of the younger bunnies handed him sac, and he gave it to the man._

_"That's how the times are, you can't budget yourself with rice anymore" the man said, then he turned around. Kagome's first meeting with youkais since the feudal ages was over. She turned to the collector, he was the oldest of the four agents, she thought he was about 30 years old, and unlike the other two, he didn't seem to be as irritated by the profession he was forced to take._

_"You were a cleaner?" she asked._

_"in a way" he answered, "I have some catholic priests blood from my mothers side, and my father comes from a line of monks, so when I finished high-school the cleaners came and recruited me, said that even though it's dormant, I have enough power to be a high ranking office. But I couldn't stand the job after a few times, so I got transferred to the finance"._

_"I'm Higurashi Kagome, it's an honor meeting you" she said._

_"The pleasure is mine; please call me Benkei, Kagome-san"_

End of chapter 04.

Well, what did you think? I hope this chapter cleared some bits of the past and shade new light on whatever mysteries you might have had in mind.

And as for what the future holds? Next update will be a side chapter about the life of a side character, it'll include some terms and explanations for names, if you care about those stuff. And after that, we've got the final update with chapter 05, since I can't see myself finishing another chapter before the army drafting, so 05 will be the last chapter for a long (possibly forever) time, the good part is that chapter 05 ends quite happily, so it won't be a supreme cliff hanger.

_And once again, a big thanks to the two people who reviewed, the story, it's nice knowing at least some one reads._


	5. Samurai Blood, Samurai Heart

As I said last time, this chapter doesn't have much to do with the main plot of the story, but rather to the OC I wrote inside, You might find this story intersting, you might not, it doesn't matter much.

Samurai blood, Samurai Heart.

Side story to Night Hounds.

Name: Kenhito Bossuke.

Gender: Male.

Race: Human, that's quite sure.

Age: he says he's 30, but he said it since he got command of cell 05, at least that's what I'm told, so the average guess is that soon he'll be stepping into his 50es.

Place of birth; Hokkaido, we assume, he's somewhere from up north, at least that's for certain.

Current rank: commanding officer of cell 02, 2nd lieutenant in the board of directors.

Location: Tokyo hospital.

Kenhito Bossuke, a man of few words, few injuries and a few family members.

The whole time, nobody came to visit him, not one of his co-workers thought to come and ask how he was doing. And thus, I, the great Jaken, had to watch over him all night.

After three hours, and about five douses of pain killers, which I requested for myself, but the nurse injected to him, I had to take back the 'man of few words' I made earlier. With the right treatment, the man was a machine gun of sentences. Though, he talked only about himself.

----

The Kenhito family, a samurai family from Hokkaido with a history of over 2000 years. And yet, surprisingly, not one male was known to die from old age, or later than the age of 52, Bossuke seemed like he'll be breaking a family tradition in a few years.

According to history recordings, most armies in Japan's history had a least one soldier who went by the name of Kenhito, the latter military documents, those from the time of Colonel Perry's arrival, indicate that in the past 200 years, more than 300 man from the Kenhito family died in service.

No wonder the family was shrinking.

It wasn't just soldiers, Bossuke's grandfather was one of admiral Tojo's direct subordinates, and he was also one of the 500 men who killed themselves in front of the emperor's palace back in 1945. Not only that, his great grandfather was one of the eleven conspirers back in 1936.

Ever since he came to Tokyo, Bossuke's mother reminded him that he better join the police force soon, at least then he could face his relatives at the other side of the Sanzo River.

Of course, he couldn't tell her what his line of work was, as far as she knew, he was merely a Kendo instructor. Not a complete lie, as that was what he wrote in his tax forms and he did teach lessons twice a week. For her it was enough, she threatened to come to Tokyo and take the family Katana back to Hokkaido, and then invite his brother, Managemaru to claim the symbol of the family.

Knowing his mother, he moved into a different part of Tokyo, and never made contact with her again, Managemaru said he did the right thing. Though she was the one who taught them the sword art, even while the ban on militate activities was still in progress. In her eyes, Bokens were good only for kids whose hands aren't strong enough to lift steel yet, the moment the brothers were able to lift the family Katana, she started their training.

He turned his eyes to the Katana once again; he tried to remember the last time it was used in combat, long before the Tokeguawa reign, even before the Heiyan era, perhaps sometime in the Yayoi times? It seemed logical, the sword was created when blacksmithing was still a new concept, it didn't share many similarities with later swords, only the general shape was somewhat the same, and while the sheath was replaced every few hundreds of years, the sword itself was rusty and resembled more an iron rod than a weapon.

But that was only in the eyes of strangers, for Bossuke, the sword symbolized the entire family history, every man who died in battle carried this sword, even though the battles themselves were done with spears, bows, and other swords. This Katana, which was created before the custom of naming swords began, contained the soul of every warrior of the Kenhito family.

"no, not the Yayoi times, 1945" he reminded himself, the last time the steel met human flesh, the blood stains still covered it, the Harakiri of his grandfather.

/\\\\

When he was still young, back in his school days, Bossuke was known as 'number two', he was second in math, second in English, second in Japanese. The name kept on up until graduation ceremony, when he was named the number one student of the year and invited to make a speech.

He forever cursed that day in his mind, years of hard work, years of purposely failing at the least important question and years of teaching other students how to ace the exams and this was how he was repaid? Did the universe have no sense of dignity? No respect for all his hard work?

After the speech, he was forever called 'cough boy' back in Hokkaido, Managemaru still sent him the local newspapers whenever the mentioned that incident. When the local newspaper had made a cover story from the ceremony, Bossuke has proudly moved down to Tokyo, where no one had heard about 'cough boy'.

At least that's what he thought, apparently, the four lads dressed in black who came to his 70,000 Yen-a-month one room apartment, knew about the incident quite well.

"Who are you?" he asked them, back in Hokkaido, he was a pretty intimidating guy, he never imagined Tokyo's punks to be so different, mainly in the manner they dressed, and in the fact that the man who knocked on the door needed just the tip of his hand to push him out of the way.

"Our names aren't not be known by the likes of you" one of them said, that sort of formal speech, along with the unnatural strength and black suits, convinced Bossuke that they weren't just thugs. "However, we might be willing to share a bit of information if you'd answer a few questions" another one of them said.

He looked at their positions, one was standing next to the door, one next to the telephone, another has already found the swords, and the last one was standing right next to him. Even though they weren't in fighting position, he could tell quite well that he was at their mercy, except that…

"I won't stop you, go ahead, make a run for, jump out the window, from the 7th floor, I'm sure that you'll survive, especially with the heavy traffic down there".

Well, there goes that idea, right out the window.

"What do you want" Bossuke asked.

"First of all, how should I call you? Number 2 or cough boy? Which of them do you prefer?" the man standing in front of him asked, Bossuke classified him as the gang leader, which normally, would make him a good hostage. But, the man also seemed to be the strongest and most dangerous of the four.

"Why not just call me by name?"

"Very well, I agree, now, Mister Kenhito Bossuke, would you sit and answer a question of mine"

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Indeed, I never gave you one, first question, back in junior high, which one of your senpais was called 'demon of confessions' when she was younger?"

That was defiantly a weird question, how did he know about it? And why did he ask that? Bossuke expected a math or science question.

"It's Onnako from class 3-5, she has confessed 12 times in her last year of elementary school"

"I now assume that our reports were right, you truly are a rare one, I shall be back tomorrow" the four men left the apartment.

Later that day, so did Bosssuke, moving out on his first day in Tokyo wasn't one of his plans, but nor was getting messed up with those types of people.

The morning afterwards, Bossuke gave up on the idea to get the appliance forms to Todai (Tokyo University) , and decided to stay at home with the three items he brought back from the old apartment; the feeling of fear and inferiority from the previous day has yet to leave him.

At 12:00 exactly, he heard a knock on the door, he decided not to answer to it, he was quite sure that he didn't leave any hints about the new apartment location, as he didn't even have enough time in Tokyo to associate with anybody who might have ratted out on him.

Nevertheless, the door was opened at 12:01, and the same man walked through the door, this time he was alone, and wearing different clothes from those of yesterday.

Bossuke took the time actually examining the man before he rushed for the swords, the man was tall, almost a foot taller than the average Japanese, despite that, he was obviously a man of the island. The face of the man reminded Bossuke of the old samurai stories, of men with faces gentle as those of women but with strength and courage of the beast itself.

As for the new line of clothing, it seemed to be some old fashioned male Kimono, white colored with something furry hanging on from the back; Bossuke hadn't failed to notice the two un-matching swords the man held either.

"So, you've come back" he said, reaching for his two Kodachi swords.

"Indeed" the man said, "I would not be killed by those pieces of metal" he glanced at the Kodachis, the mere stare almost caused Bossuke to drop the swords, "if you intend to kill me, then it's the Katana that you ought to wield".

"How did you follow me here?" Bossuke asked, he made sure he wasn't followed by anyone yesterday, and the contract has been signed between him and the apartment owner, without involving any other party in the process.

"I'm quite sure that you should ask yourself how did I find you yesterday, then the answer would be clear".

The realization sunk down quite easily on Bossuke, the man who gave out information was the cab driver, a man from the island of Hokkaido as well, he supposedly came back to Hokkaido to watch his son's graduation ceremony, and Bossuke has picked a ride with him to get to Tokyo and later used to drive to the 2nd apartment.

"I take it that you've come to an understanding about that?" he asked, Bossuke nodded in response, "and I take it that you have yet to settle in?" Bossuke nodded again.

"Wonderful, come with me, my driver is waiting downstairs" it wasn't as much of a request as it was an order. Against all his good senses, Bossuke followed, now holding tightly the Katana.

Bossuke looked at the driver; he was a short, slightly green, almost mutated man, and he paid attention only to the other man, "my liege, I see that you have taken control of another one, indeed, there's not one who can resist you", he said in the most annoying voice possible, Bossuke was about to act completely based on instincts, which all told him to choke the man. But before Bossuke could do a thing, the other man has already pushed into the car.

"Pay no mind to him, mister Kenhito, you'll learn to cope with Jaken with time".

The little man, apparently known has Jaken, has been himself thrown into quite a feat, "Lord, is it truly wise to tell my name to such a being? You surly remember that he has yet to even pass a single test".

"My actions aren't to be questioned by the likes of you, Jaken. The choice of revealing myself, Sesshomaru, to anyone, is mine and mine alone". The other man, now known as Sesshomaru hissed at him, "Now drive to HQ, I have business to attend to tomorrow, so I would wish to finish with Bossuke registration before I leave to the conference."

"Registration? Do you want to hire me for something? Why should I even accept the offer? In fact, what makes you think that the moment I'll get out of this car, I won't be running to the police station and press charges against you two for kidnapping?" he looked at the two.

"phhe, I think you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that you have been kidnapped, considering that you've put the safety belt on your own, sonny" Bossuke turned to Jaken, he didn't imagine that the small man could talk that way, which meant that Sesshomaru was defiantly someone very important to him.

"What matter of job is it? I've got a family to support, you know" he turned to Sesshomaru, looking at his situation, even if he would have went to the police station, they wouldn't be able to prove anything, as he actually locked the apartments door on his own and entered the car by his own free will, no lawyer in the world could do anything.

"I don't think you have any reason to worry, the job will fit you perfectly, and as for your brother, I'm sure that we could find a spot for Managemaru as well, if he turns out to be half of what you are" Sesshomaru said in something which almost resembled a smile, Bossuke felt a shiver going down his spine.

"Should I ask about my wages?" Bossuke tried to interrogate.

"I must admit it'll be much less than you could make as a lawyer or a doctor, but money isn't entirely what you're after, is it? If it was, then you wouldn't have carried this sword with you, would you?"

-----------0--------

The phone rung at the office, it was the red phone, which indicated an emergency call from the board of directors, so when the phone rung in his office, Bossuke rushed to answer it. "Agent Kenhito here, Cell 08 is ready to duty".

"cut the crap, we've got problems, you need to immobilize cells 08, 09 and 11 right away, the cleaners need your help in a mission" a female voice shouted the orders at him, at any other time, he would have tried to ask who she was, but he knew that if she was able to contact him with the red phone, it meant she had access to the inner facilities of the NH HQ. and besides, from the board, he only knew Sesshomaru, so he wasn't too surprised to find that a woman was on the board as well.

"Immediately, miss, but aren't the cleaners out on a mission now?" he asked.

"I told you to shut up, haven't I?" the voice shouted at him loudly, "the real cleaners are out on a mission, which is why your help is needed, we've received information that a gang of rat youkais are about to distribute over 30 tons of sulfuric acid into the streets, naturally, this falls into are jurisdiction. You are ordered to go into their hideout, the cleaners might be fairly green, but they can still create a barrier and stop the enemy from using anything too big. Your part is easy, get in, do the work, get out, we have authorization to use anything we want to, I don't care if you rush in there with semi automatics and shoot everyone, as long as you secure the acid, it's fine".

It wasn't the first time Bossuke had to go on a mission with the cleaners, but it felt different than the rest of them, usually, only one or two of them would go with the cleaners, and that would be only so that they could see what things were about, this time, over 15 men would be deployed, armed to the underwear.

"It seemed that casualties should be expected" he told himself, not a reassuring thought. He quickly dialed the numbers and contacted the agents, 'one hour', he said.

The operation went bad from the beginning. The 'veteran' of the cleaners unit was merely part of the NH for less than a year, completely green. And even worse, he believed himself to be some sort of hotshot, claiming that the blood of Chinese yin-yang masters ancestors he had made him into a better leader than Bossuke. Which meant that over twenty minutes had to wasted on explaining the term 'chain of command' to that boy, and still, the trouble have yet to end.

'The information was wrong', was the first thought that crossed Bossuke's mind, he quickly dismissed it, 'the information was precise, the one who made a mistake was me'. He looked at the situation again; two men were already dead, another heavily injured, and a few were reporting that they've lost their weapons. He had to give out the order.

"Retreat!"

He knew very well that the responsibility would lie on his shoulders, when the board of directors indicated specific troops; it meant that those troops were sufficient for the mission. If anything, then his own command wasn't. In the old days, such a filature would require a seppuku to atone for. 'but no time for that' he said to himself, giving off the command revealed to the rat youkais that he was leading the operation, and caused them all to focus their attention on him.

Bossuke heard a shout, it came from the commander of cell 11, he shouted that they were all set to leave, a similar shout came from the leader of cell 09, but he added that the people of cell 08 were with him, it meant that he was the only one still there.

"Move out, and secure the perimeter, no one comes in and no one comes out!" was the last thing Bossuke had time to shout back, before a cold knife went through his chest.

Later, a time which seemed to him like ages, he woke up, stripped away from everything he had on him but the family Katana, "probably thought you're too rusty to do them any harm" he said silently, something ringed very wrong in his head. At first, he assumed someone was just playing the drums, but a moment later, he figured that no one in their right mind would play music here, and he remembered the hands of the rat youkais, they weren't fit to handle the sticks, so it had to be something else.

He tried moving around, he couldn't stand up; he dismissed the possibility of being tied down or held by any other type of binding, as he felt no pressure of that sort on him.

But there was something else pressuring him, and it gave him quite a loud feeling, Bossuke tried to focus his attention to whatever was on his feet, he felt it beating, over and over like a war march. He opened his eyes, there was nothing on his feet, and no one else was in the room.

'I can't walk, but perhaps I can crawl' he thought to himself, he tried pushing himself around, he breathed in relief once he found that his movement wasn't completely restricted. He tried to reach for his legs, to feel what was holding him; apparently, doing so was impossible without standing up, so instead, he reached out for the sword.

He almost laughed at himself, the sword was now used as a stick, he could almost see his ancestors sharpening their claws, anxiously waiting for him to die, so they could punish him for desecrating the sword in such a manner. "you can hit me as much as you want once I cross that river, father, until then, I've got a few more years of getting old and dying in my bed" he murmured quietly, 'that's right, I'm going to die from old age' he said to himself.

He grabbed the sword, but in the process, the sheath fell down, reveling the naked rusted blade, 'heh, as if there's a difference anyway', he swung the blade next to his feet, the drum march has suddenly become a different melody, as if there were numerous sets of drums, which all moved in space.

He suddenly realized that his feet were free now, so he stood up, taking time to examine the room, dark, gloomy, small and stinking, there was no doubt in his mind, this was still the rat cave. And seeing as he wasn't rescued yet, it meant that not enough time has passed to allow Sesshomaru to organize a 2nd attack force.

Something was still bothering him, though, the drums, they seemed to be moving around, he could now tell the difference between each 'set', some were louder, the pace was different as well, but surprisingly, the sound concentrated in a different part of his head, he could still perfectly hear the sound of moving objects and the sound of his footsteps, the drums haven't shadowed the rest of his hearing sense.

'Sense'

He heard some cleaners use that word; they referred to it as their ability to feel youkais and humans, they never mentioned drums, but nor did they mention it's manifestation of it. Was this a case of explaining the blue color to a blind man?

'No', he said to himself, he went through some cleaners files, while it seemed that a good percentage of them came from shrines and churches, the rest were completely normal, which meant that for at least some of them, whatever sense they had was awakened, so perhaps the case was the same with him?

He tried to remember the exact content of the files, he recalled a few specific dates that some files had, "sleeping, leakage, awakening", he then remembered that the date of the sleeping state was written only in the cases of agents who came from a religious background, it lasted from the date of birth until their status changed from 'sleeping' to leakage, apparently.

"Keep on with this thought' he said to himself, trying to ignore the fact that the drums have suddenly began to increase their volume.

'After the leakage state, there were much more reports on them, the recruiting agents kept a closer eye on the would-be-cleaners, why would they do that? Unless they were waiting for something to happen, next stage perhaps? Then after leakage came the awakening stage, and then what?'

Then they were recruited. That was it; recruiting agents for the cleaners were always past cleaners, so their presence was required in order to awaken the new ones. Cleaners had that spirit power, which was somewhat close you youkai power, maybe that was what caused the awakening of the force?

"yes, that would make sense, and the reason why sometimes agents are sent to go with cleaners on missions is so that they would awaken as well", he summarized the latest string of thought to himself, coming to a conclusion that the drums he heard were that spirit sense of the cleaners…

And once he got that part right, there was no problem for him to use that sense to tell his situation, information was the most crucial thing in battle, and he was a master of information manipulation, and now Bossuke had all the information he needed.

'eight of them are here, the leader is quite far away, along with the three strongest, so they're probably working on the cave's defense, so all that was left for him was to slip through the four weaker rats guard, and then he would be free.

"Working on the defense" he thought again, realizing how wrong was he, the place were the leader was standing at was most likely the only entrance to the cave, hence the need for defense. And without anything to use as a weapon, there was no chance for him to actually get there without encountering any of them, it left him one choice.

Bossuke took out the katana once more, "in the past, Samurais would go to hell and back for their lords, so surly I can escape a place like this' he told himself, and firmly holding the katana, he began the charge.

Three hours later, he stole a purse from a woman, it didn't have phone tokens, but the woman had enough money for what he had in mind. He took a look at himself, if he could only hold on for a few more hours; he would be back in HQ at Tokyo, the bullet trains' last station.

'move body, the spirit commands you!' he tried to tell his bleeding body, the fact that he was alive was a big enough surprise already, he could have sworn that some of the bullets hit him in vital spots.

But that wasn't the only thing he had to think about, there was no signs of any NH agents conducting a 2nd strike, was it because he himself was the highest officer in the chain of command at that time?

"no time to think about it, just focus on regaining your power' he told himself, and with that, he fell into a deep sleep.

"wake up, mister, it's the final stop' the attendant said to him, he wondered how come no one tried doing so earlier, was it because of his yankee look of torn down clothes he had?

No time to think of that, he reminded himself, he was in Tokyo already, so a few more minutes and it'll be done.

It was already late, almost midnight, so the HQ would be almost void of people now, he took the inner city train and tried to force himself to stay up by standing, nobody even tried to question him about the sword, it wasn't an unusual occurrence in Tokyo, in the same train he took, there were other three boys with wooden swords and metal bats, obviously punks looking for trouble.

Bossuke noticed it the moment he entered the building, drums, it meant a youkai was there, was it a spy? He tried to think it through, even if it was, he knew that he probably had no stamina left to fight it, the only solution was to report it to someone, preferably Sesshomaru.

Nobody questioned him on the way up to his office; he didn't even encounter anyone, the drumming only got louder and louder, it has long since passed the one he heard while running next to the rat youkai leader, he could practically feel his ear drums blowing apart.

He stepped into his office, his head was already bursting with pain, but that was nothing compared to the surprise he experienced, in the middle of the room, emitting all those drums, was standing Sesshomaru.

"Ville Youkai!"

At least now some things made sense, to him the mission was impossible from the beginning, they were sent there so that the rat youkais could kill them, which is exactly why a 2nd strike wasn't initiated.

Bossuke pulled out his sword, during the unsheathing he realized something, he couldn't beat the rat youkais, whose 'drumming' was less than 1/100th of what he heard now, so beating Sesshomaru would be impossible to him.

"Oh, Is my life going to be taken by that sword? I'm glad that you remembered what I've told you when we first met" Sesshomaru smiled, still not getting into his battle position.

"I'm not so stupid to fight a battle I can't win, but I can still retain the Kenhito's family honor!" he shouted, pointing the Katana at his belly, just as his grandfather has done years ago.

'just like grandfather' he told himself, and then the realization hit him, committing hara-kiri at this point would mean that the blood stains of his grandfather will be over shadowed by his own, which would say that the crumbling of the belief he had in the Night hounds was more meaningful than the loss of Japan's independence?

No, that wasn't right, doing so would shame the family even more.

Something hit him, hard and fast, he couldn't tell what it was, where it hit and even who had done so.

"fool, that sword of yours is only good for protecting Japan, if you can't point it at me, then you should point it where I tell you so" Sesshomaru shouted at him, it was the first time he has seen the youkai lose his temper.

Bossuke fell to his knees, dropping the sword next to Sesshomaru's legs, "indeed" he thought, "I've been a fool. Our life can only be lost when the master orders it".

"stand up" Sesshomaru said, lifting the katana, "from now on, you may not unsheathe your sword without me saying so, for you are nothing but my tool." He handed Bossuke the Katana back.

The end.

Well, that was the side story of Bossuke, the first original character in the story, raging with stories of Japanese samurais, and other past events that happened, in other words, a story of a lost pet, who has found it's master. Pretty much like a masochist slave finding a sadistic master, if you've read ichi the killer then you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, for some explanations:

The name Bossuke comes from combining the English word boss with the 'suke' part, which is a common name ending for males in Japanese, so basically, it's like calling a policeman 'Copson' (cop + 'son' from Jason, Hanson, and whatever).

The name Managemaru is the same, Manage from management, and maru from the Japanese language.

Kenhito basically means sword-person, if you remember, the emperor of Japan during WWII was naruhito, so I though it could be used.

Onnako comes from the words Onna (woman, girl) and Ko, which is an ending for females, making the names something like Girly in direct translation.

Boken is a wooden kendo sword, if you know Ranma 1/2, then that's what Kuno keeps on carrying with him.

Harakiri is the ritual of cutting to guts, you must be crazy to do so.

Tokegawa was the last shogun family of Japan, they took over after the battle of sekighara, it might be noticeable in quite a few animes.

Admiral Tojo was Japan's military commander during WWII.

Heyian era and was before the civil war era (Edo period, the time where the original IY story takes place), the Yayoi era is even before that.

Kodachi is the smallest sword in the Samurai set, it's almost a dagger, I believe it was used for shaving in ancient times (kidding, of course), if you've watched Rurouni Kenshin, then you might remember Aoki using 'Shiki Kodachi nittou Ryu ougie! Kaiten ken buro ko ren!' as his strongest attack, it's a sword style of using two kodachi swords.

The Sanzo river is a part of alot of Asia's belief about death, it's basically a river which is the border between the living world and the afterlife, you can find quite a few myths concerning it (like having to pay the skeleton something so that he could take you across it, it even came up in one the 'Justice leagues' episodes).

now, I'd like to give a special mention to SlummyRedDragon, as he is resposible to two thirds of the story's reviews.

other than that, next update will probably be the last, and after that, I'll be in the army. 


	6. Waking up to Reality

Well, we've finally reached chapter five, it's quite good, and contains a large cast of characters some of you might be familiar with. Those of you who aren't can fix that with a quick google search, as neither of the mangas are licensed.

Chapter 05: Waking up to reality.

Note: the following chapter contains characters from Bremen and Hareluya II Boy mangas, both of them belong to Haruto Umezawa. The characters don't play significant roles in the story, so it's not required to know them, but for those of you who do, it'll be an added bonus of fun. I assume. Of course, this paragraph is a disclaimer, for those of you who couldn't figure it out on their own.

Kagome woke up, her back was sore from sleeping on the park bench, her eyes were swollen from crying in her sleep and her mind was aching from over thinking and remembering.

"Why did I dream about him?" she asked herself, Benkei was the only person she tried to seriously date since she came back to her time. Calm, smart, mature, he was everything Inuyasha wasn't and everything Hojo strived to be. When she felt down, he would comfort her, when she needed someone to complain to, he was there to lend her his shoulder. Four months after they've started seeing each other he died, and with him the small pieces of innocence she had left.

He didn't die in a work-related matter; he was mugged in the middle of the night, stabbed to death by some punk who couldn't afford his drug fix that night. Later, the police investigation reveled that the punk was seen throwing up and some other gang members said that Benkei told them that he would take the boy to the hospital. On the way to Benkei's car the boy stabbed him, five times. When Kagome visited his family, a week after the murder, Benkei's mother revealed to her that the police found a receipt on Benkei's body. It was for a diamond ring.

"What would you have done in this situation?" she tried thinking, the moment the boy, "Shippo, not just a boy", she corrected herself, mentioned Inuyasha's name, the puzzle started solving itself, fragments of yesterday's events became more clear.

Shippo, Sesshomaru, Kagura and even Kikyo, she remembered meeting all of them last night, they talked about Inuyasha, said something about him escaping from Kikyo.

She tried once again to figure the jigsaw in her mind, if Sesshomaru was the head of the Night Hounds, it meant that Inuyasha was also related, if not part of. In that case, Kagome couldn't help but wonder whether she was invited to join the organization because of her past, it seemed possible, perhaps they feared that someone might use her again to search for the shikon no tama? If Kikyo was alive, it meant the jewel was still present in the world. Then was she recruited just so that other won't use her?

There was only one way for her to verify her suspicions, Kagome decided to go back and discuss it with Sesshomaru himself, it felt like a reasonable course of action for her, she would get some answers from the people best suited to give them.

"She's coming back, finally" Shippo breathed in relief, standing next to the front window, he was able to see Kagome walking slowly towards them.

"we've noticed it, you know… can we make it to the flight?" Kagura looked at Sesshomaru.

"I believe we could, if you two would find the car keys already" he replied, he too noticed the change in Kagome's aura, just as Kagura has, the girl's power has awakened.

A knock on the door was heard, Kagome was on the other side.

"Kanna, Kagura, Sesshomaru, Shippo" she looked at the four youkais, letting the realization of their identities slip into her mind, "What's going to happen now?".

Shippo was the one to answer, "Take your stuff" he passed a suitcase to her, "we're going to Europe" he said. She looked at him with a blank stare, "Inuyasha is there, waiting for us, for you to come" he explained, hopefully, it would be enough.

About an hour later, they were boarding the plane, nothing more than three biology students following their professor in his research of New Zealand wild life. At least that was the cover story for the three of them, who were obviously too old to be on an 'end of high school' vacation.

"how did they get me a passport" Kagome asked Shippo, who was sitting next to her, both of them felt relived boarding this plane, which the only similarities he shared with Kagura's one was the fact they both had wings and the name.

"That's easy, he had someone steal your ID card, and then I transformed into you, we went to one of our men in the ministry of interior affairs, and he produced one for us. Have you really never left Japan?" he asked her.

"Never had the chance before, I was too busy with studying to do anything, and then I got accepted into the NH and that was about it…" she answered, it took her a moment before she realized what he's done. "Wait a second, you guys stole my ID card and impersonated as me?" she almost yelled at him, but since this was a public plane, she only raised her voice a little.

"We didn't plan to do so, but things got messy on our end, we had to get everything done quickly, see the date on the passport?" he pointed his finger on the small letters.

"It's from yesterday" she realized, "really, what happened that made everything so messed up?"

"I don't know much, Inuyasha came by to Japan a month ago, it was just for an hour, but Kikyo sensed it and came to Japan as well, then she went into hiding for a week, we thought that she just stopped to restock on her herbs or something. But we were wrong, our intelligence couldn't spy any action at the herbs stores or the botanic gardens… so we figured that we should get you out of Japan as soon as possible, just in case. And the rest, well, you know the rest."

"yes, I do know it" she said, "how's your shoulder, I hope I haven't hurt you too bad" she remembered what happened just a few hours ago.

"Don't worry, we youkais heal much faster than humans, I barely feel the stab anymore"

"I guess I should've seen that one coming" she said, remembering that was the phrase Inuyasha used so many times, she couldn't stop herself from asking, "where is he now? I mean inuyasha"

"he should be waiting for us somewhere, we can't be sure where, he's too worried that Kikyo might find out to leave us any solid clues" Shippo answered.

"and the full moon night doesn't make things any easier, I guess?" she said, looking through the airplane's window, the moon was nearing it's complete form.

"I believe Agent Higurashi might have noticed a point that I missed" Sesshomaru said, removing the book from his hands.

"I did?"

"actually, Sesshomaru's right, we didn't consider that option, do you know of any rock concert going on at Europe? Maybe the live 8 or something of the sort?"

"Live 8 should be coming to France soon, it's nice, but too short" Kagura murmured from her near sleep state.

"What do rock concerts have to do with anything?" Kagome asked, Inuyasha didn't seem like the type who'd like rock music, then again, she thought, 500 years were enough time for someone to acquire a new taste in music.

"oh, I guess you didn't know it, are you aware of the spiritual power surrounding us?" Shippo asked her.

"Of course" she stated, Miroku and Sango always talked about it "Jaki is usually red and black, holy powers are purple and white, normal people are blue and.."

"Stop it" Shippo interrupted her, "we don't need to hear your version of sensing, it's quite dangerous actually"

"It is? How come?" she asked.

"Hard to explain, but spiritual awareness is a very suggestible power, you should ask Kanna about the exact details, she's a master in it. I've seen her brainwashing someone, she didn't allow me to listen to her, and I've stopped reading her leaps after two sentences, but still, the guy came in quite sane, and after three days, was so messed up that even his mother could recognize him…"

"what happened to him?" she asked, leaning closer to hear the rest of the story.

"not much, he went back to America and started a new-age religion, thanks to him, we've got a few more million dollars into our bank account each year" Shippo smiled a menacing smile.

"Still, what about Inuyasha?" she continued, she tried to ignore the fact that the organization she worked for showed more and more signs of being a criminal organization.

"oh, anyway, as I've been saying, when humans are excited and in emotional turmoil, their energy takes form of youki, or something similar to it. Are you following my point?"

"yes", the years she spent in NH weren't for nothing, it kept her mind sharp, "it makes real youkai's harder to detect.. and since rock music has tendency to get people excited, then youkais are naturally going to gather in rock concerts if they want to meet each other and still conceal themselves. And that's why we are going to look for Inuyasha in the live 8 concert, right?"

"almost" Shippo patted her on the back, "usually, it'd be true, but we're speaking of Inuyasha, live 8 will be crowded with TV cameras, and if Kikyo sees him on the screen she'll know where he is"

"Then what good is the live 8 in that case?" she asked, "you just told me that he's not going to be there..".

"indeed, it's true that my brother won't be in the live 8 concert, but he chose to meet us in Europe for a reason, the fact that the concert is here is a proof of that, he'll be following the concert closely, and hide in a close perimeter of it" Sesshomaru spoke.

"Then, what are we talking about? I don't know many cities in France other than Paris…" Kagome spoke again, for the first time, she was now taking remorse in the fact she decided to study ancient history over geographic.

"No, the live 8 performs only in capital cities, and Inuyasha told my sister that he'll waiting for us in the capital, that means he'll be in a small country next to France, somewhere the live 8 concert won't be in." Kagura explained, being the head of international affairs, world geographic, politics and site seeing spots were her expertise.

"Then, it's either Holland or Belgium? Right?" Kagome inquired.

"It is so" Sesshomaru concluded, "Now, silent, I would wish to view this movie" he said, it kept them silent for the entire flight.

---------------

Somewhere in hag, inside a small club in the outer parts of the city, stood a man, he wasn't the only one there, but he was the single person who helped placing the chair without pay.

At least not material pay, what he was hoping to get was far greater than any amount of money, people would call it fulfillment of his destiny, but Inuyasha has stopped believing in fate long ago, now he believed in getting what he wanted.

"Dog demon, listen" someone whispered in his ears, it took Inuyasha a moment to calm his heartbeat; there was only one person in the club who knew that information.

"Stop calling me that way, dammit! What do you want?" he looked at the man, no matter how many years they knew each other, Iwaseki was still quite a mystery, though currently Iwaseki was nothing more than the head of the GBN production company, in the past he was of 'Brainnation' an American outlaw organization with terror-like activities, the proof was the glass eye beneath the sunglasses.

"don't be so tense, you know I quit the business years ago, it's just that we have a situation which I need you to attend to" Iwaseki said, keeping his tone exactly the same, as if he was ordering breakfast.

"If you have quit the business, then you should stop speaking that way, can't you get it?" Inuyasha asked him.

"I guess you're right, anyway, you're Japanese, right?"

Inuyasha nodded.

"Great, the translator called in sick, the bastard, I bet he'll be going to the live 8 concert, so we don't have anyone to get the bands from the airport, and I can't leave the stage, so can you drive and get them?" Iwaseki asked.

"Keh! You shouldn't worry about the live 8, rocking is for people who like the music, it doesn't matter to us if there are five people listening or five thousand!" Inuyasha said, forgetting to answer the question.

"And…" Iwaseki continued

"And yes, I'll get the bands, its Fire Gunz and Bremen this time, right?" Inuyasha smiled, the two bands had good energies, and with the new moon coming up, nobody could tell he was a youkai, even if they directly touched him.

Kagome was standing in the ladies room, apparently Kagura wasn't well versed in antics of human behavior as she said she was, or perhaps she didn't care, at any matter, Kagome was there, in Heatrow airport of London, 'freshening up' her face.

The door slammed, a young, extremely tall woman entered, screaming to the outside "Yes, I'm sure I should enter here!" the shouting was in Japanese.

"oh, soo-orry abbout thaat" she said, in very disturbed English, she then turned and looked at Kagome, "Oh, my mistake, cutie-chan, I'm sorry, my friends and I are in a hurry, but it doesn't mean that a girl shouldn't be allowed to take care of herself" she went back to speaking Japanese. It occurred to Kagome that something was wrong in the girl flow of energy, but she could quite put her finger on the exact thing.

"Oh, never mind me; are you here with your friends?" Kagome asked.

"I'm here with my band, Romio booked us a wrong ticket, we should be going to Holland, not Britain. So we need to catch a flight to Hag now, it's such an annoyance" the woman answered, taking off two 40 cm heels from her feet.

"A band? What kind of band?" Kagome asked, now actually facing the girl's eyes.

"I'm part of Berman! We're going to be known as the kings of rock!" she screamed, "my name is Ryo, and I'm the drummer queen of the stage".

"It's an honor meeting you, Ryo-san, my name is Kagome" Kagome said, slightly bowing down.

"The pleasure is mine, Kagome-chan, come and see us play sometime, if you ever get a chance" Ryo laughed.

A minute later, Kagome went out of the washroom towards Shippo and Sesshomaru, "I've come across some information" she said, "There would be a Japanese band playing in Hag in the next few days, do you think it's just a coincidence".

Sesshomaru's eyes lit up, "I'm surprised that I haven't though of it myself" he said "My brother does own a business in Hag, so it might be possible, we should check this matter at once" he pulled out his cellular phone and started talking, for Kagome great surprise, his speech was quite gentle this time, she knew who was on the other side of the call.

"yes, please order four tickets"

"…."

"Don't worry about the passports, I will come there shortly"

"…."

"Of course you can put it on NH account, that's why you have that credit card"

He closed the phone, "move it" he returned to barking orders, "our presence is required elsewhere".

It took Inuyasha a few hours to find the EU driving license, it was hidden somewhere in the safe inside his office, along with the clubs ownership deed and a few other documents of identity verification.

The now black haired human heard a knock on the door, "what do you want?" he shouted, he hated not being able to smell who was next to him.

"It's about time you leave for the airport; the flight seemed to have left Heathrow earlier than expected. You need to leave, now" Iwaseki said.

"I was on my out, anyway, anything I should take special notice of?" Inuyasha asked.

"yes, Bremen are quite a band of weirdoes, you should especially be careful of Romio and Ryo" Iwaseki said, half demons were present in America as well, so inuyasha's black hair wasn't anything special, as far as he cared.

0000-000-0000

"I believe you have established a connection with one of those performers, haven't you, Agent Higurashi?" Sesshomaru looked at Kagome and asked.

"I did speak to the drummer of the band" She answered, "why are you asking?"

"Good" he threw an object at her direction; she easily caught it, Shippo's cellophane. "I went over your files earlier, it seems that you do not speak French, is it true?"

"Yes, I don't speak as many languages as you three do" she answered, "what's the point of asking?"

"I'll explain this one" Kagura took over the conversation, Sesshomaru didn't say a word of protest, "he wants you feign ignorance and ask that Ryo girl where are they playing and how to get there, cry like a baby if you must, but get her to take you with her. Once you've gotten there, establish us a place to stay for the night, a Japanese band should have someone that takes care of their traveling, and you could use that person get us a place as well. Don't be afraid to use some of the womanly charm you've got floating, ok?"

"How can I use any woman charm on Ryo? She's a woman too, you know" Kagome asked the wind youkai.

"Then use the 'big sister' trick, whatever goes, we can't have you failing this mission"

Kagome sighed and walked away, obviously, Kagura wasn't about to listen to anything she had to say, and it seemed that nor Sesshomaru or Shippo were about to jump in the conversation and help. She sadly walked away from the group, trying to find the Japanese woman known as Ryo.

"Damnit, why can't I remember anything of her?" she asked herself in anger, she remembered every bit of the girl's behavior, but she didn't pay much attention to her physical appearance. Though the fact that in Japan a woman with her clothing style and hair would stand out, in a international airport such as this, she blended in with the crowed, 'only a basketball player could be seen in this mass of people' Kagome thought to herself, then it hit her.

The 40 cm heels.

Considering that the woman was already taller than her, the heels had to make her stand out even in this crowed, so Kagome simply started looking around, it didn't take her long to spot the mass of hair moving above the rest of the heads.

She started walking, trying to build up the act, Kagome decided her story to be that

Her passport was stolen, along with her money and personal belongings, and that she would need a place to stay until her family could mail her money.

"uhmm, excuse me, r Ryo-san" she said, biting her tongue to create the pained expression, Kagome figured that once she'll convince the girl she's in trouble, Ryo would suggest help to help her on her own.

"oh! If it isn't you, Kagome-chan! I was just telling the guys about you!" Ryo quickly embraced Kagome, who, in turn, felt that something was incredibly wrong, but she decided it was more important to pay attention to the rest of the band.

The first thing she noticed was that all of them had a very strange energy flow, not that of a youkai, but extremely close to it, probably what Shippo and Sesshomaru meant when they talked about 'rocking',

Their physical appearance wasn't any better, of course, among the six, five seemed to be younger than her, and only two seemed be able to pass as normal in a Japanese street.

"let me introduce you, Kagome-chan! The three over there are Ichijou-kun and his two sidekicks, and they're the opening band – Fire Gunz" Ryo pointed at three man, Ichijou had an extremely point hair, while the other two seemed almost insignificant.

"and these are my friends!" she pointed at three other men, "the one with the Mohawk is Reiji, the old one is Ran, and the cute one is Romio-tan" the three man looked at her, the first to speak was apparently Ran.

"I'm not old! I'm only four years older than you guys!" however, his voice was overtaken by the questions of Reiji and Romio.

"are you alone here?" one asked, "are you single?" someone said, "what are you doing in Hag?", "it's been a while since Romio has talked to a woman, forgive him for his rudeness", "shut up! You're the one with the hand inside his underwear all the time!" they continued.

By this moment it was quite clear to Kagome that using the band would be easy, no matter how freakishly they acted, they seemed to be quite the innocent helpful type.

"I'm… I was robbed" Kagome started saying, "they took everything I had, my wallet, my money, my documents" she continued, readying herself for the big tear jerking conclusion, "I, I just don't know what to do…". Perfect.

As Kagome expected, Ryo was quick to invite her over to the club where they would be performing, "Iwaseki knows how to deal with stuff like this" she said, and promised her that nothing would happen to her.

----()()()()()----

"Seven male humans, seven male humans"

Inuyasha kept that description in mind as he looked over for the band, night time came and he was in his human form, it meant that he didn't have much means of identifying them, so he had to drive back and forth in the parking lot in hope to see the group.

After a few rides he saw a large group of people, around seven or eight, if he could count right, but two seemed to be females. Again, it was one of those times he wished he would have paid more attention to what was happening with his eyes and not just his nose, smell identity verification was good and well as a youkai, but in his human form, it was useless.

He stopped next to them, "have you seen a band of Asian people around here? They call themselves Bremen and Fire Gunz" he called them in English.

"That's us! We've been waiting for you" one of them said, he was already walking to the vehicles door. The rest of them followed, "is that all of you?" he asked in English again.

"uhhm, yes" a girl answered.

At that time, Inuyasha paid no mind to her, his mind was too strangled in the thoughts of whether his brother could actually think hard enough to notice all the clues he left for him to follow. Inuyasha felt that hoping was a waste of time, though, as his brother never learned to actually consider what other people may do in his calculations.

"hey, our driver is pretty cure, I wonder if he's single" one of the girls said in Japanese, two of the males were quick to respond.

"What the hell are you doing, Ryo? We can't have you scaring him, so leave your claws of him" the Mohawk guy said, "Ryo, leave him alone, he's doing us a favor" the other one said, and then turned to Inuyasha and started speaking in English, "don't be tricked, Mr. driver, it might look like a woman, but Ryo is actually a man".

Someone in the back shrieked in surprise, which in turn, almost caused Inuyasha to drive the vehicle right into the opposite lane, not from the yell itself, but because of a memory it provoked in him, but he pushed that memory aside.

"sorry about that, fellows, I don't know what took over me" he said in Japanese, they all turned to him, "impressive, so you can also speak our language, and with such an accurate accent" one of them said, but Inuyasha was more focused on the shrike which came again from the back seats, it seemed so familiar to him.

At the back of the vehicle, sat a lonely girl named Kagome, the attention around her has dawned, perhaps because Ran has asked them to leave her alone, or perhaps because of their excitement about the upcoming show. Thanks to that, she was left with more time to inspect them, Romio, Reiji and Ryo were busy insulting each other, and apparently Romio was said to be a stray dog, a name which almost made her smile. Reiji was called a rooster head, obviously because of his Mohawk, Ryo was a pussycat, probably because of her neko-like expressions, and Ran, he was called a donkey for some reason, which seemed to have something to do with cars, though Kagome has never really taken any interest in that field.

"Don't be tricked, Mr. driver, it might look like a woman, but Ryo is actually a man"

The comment by Romio caused Kagome to release a weak yell, though it did seemed to explain the girl's, uhm, guy's abnormal energy flow, the sudden turn of the car didn't leave her much time to think about the subject any further. Instead, she was now focused on the driver's energy flow; it was almost non existent, very subtle shade of gray, as if all color has vanished away from the man. Kagome couldn't imagine a mental state that would cause such a change, and asking him to tell him of any past traumas was completely out of question, not only because it would ruin her cover, but mostly because doing so would be considered extremely rude.

Despite that, his voice was something else; it reminded her of something, of a man's voice. "Remember what you're supposed to do", she told herself, "just be calm and silent", however, the voice still bickered at her head.

"We're here, the 'Dark path of the moon' club" the driver, said, it wasn't very far from the airport, in this time of the night, it took them less than twenty minutes to get there. But judging by the amount of building next to it, and the amount of people walking by, it was in the center of the city, and in daytime, it would have taken them over an hour to get there.

"great, come on, Kagome-chan, I'll talk to Iwaseki, he's a good guy and he can take care of you until your back on your feet again". Ryo started saying, he pulled Kagome hand and began to leave the car, he suddenly felt a strong grab on his hand.

At most cases, Ryo would have used his transsexual sex appeal to flirt his way out of any situation, but this time, he didn't even have the chance to begin his 'if you want a girl so badly' speech. Before he knew it, he was already thrown out of the vehicle.

"Hey, just what are you doing!" he shouted, but the car was rolling away, and Kagome was alone in it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kagome leaned over to the driver, ready to slap him, and if that didn't work, to assault him.

"It really is you" he said, the voice seemed even more familiar than before, they were already two streets away from the club.

"What do you mean?" she asked. His voice stopped her from moving; the energy around him began to swirl wildly.

"Kagome Hirugashi" he said, "it really is you".

"Have we met earlier?" she continued.

He stopped the car and turned to her, "I guess you've forgotten already, maybe you don't even believe what happened was real".

The moment he turned to her she recognized him, the black hair was styled differently, and his face have matured a little, but his eyes were still the same, Inuyasha.

It then occurred to her that she didn't think of what she will do once she met him, before, she believed that she'll just spit in his face and walk away, hurting him as he hurt her. This option didn't seem valid now, she saw him beginning to move towards her. "I'm not going to hug him, I can't let him dominate over me like that" she told herself, she felt her lips starting to move, it was even worse, "don't do it! Don't kiss him!" her mind screamed. Her lips, apparently, listened.

"SIT, SIT, SIT, SIT!"

Inuyasha felt an old sensation coming over him as his face met with the car's chairs, again and again, it reminded him that there was one thing he could do without in this reunion.

A moment after Kagome stopped screaming, he stood up, and immediately felt a pair of arms wrapped around him, he did the same.

End of chapter 05

Woot, a big chapter, ending with the usual gag. Got to love the gag. You also got to love Bremen, they're so easy to write, Fire gunz aren't, I only know tiny bits about them, seeing as they hardly do anything in Hareluya II Boy… but the most fun to write is Iwaseki, he's a really cool guy.

Despite what I said earlier, I might actually be able to write chapter 06 in time to release it, so this isn't necessarily the end, but it's the most 'complete' ending you'd get to see. Yes, next chapter will start a completely new arc, without Sesshomaru and Shippo, but filed with Inuyasha and Kagome, and lots of other crazy antics.

Naturally, I would like to know what you guys think about it, but since 75 percent of the reviews I've gotten were done by SlummyRedDragon, I can't expect to hear many opinions, it makes me wonder whether he is the only one reading or rather everybody else is just purely lazy…

Well, if I've started ranting, I might as well finish:

I never expected to get 100+ reviews, I don't write any "new girl in HS Kagome with HAWT boy Inuyasha and neurotic ex Kikyo" stories, nor do I write "Kagome saw IY kissing Kikyo and goes back to her time, and then he comes back and marries her" fics. I'm aware that I write fairly complicated plots, lots of lies and miss information, but even so, this isn't a random crossover between inuyasha and some obcsence anime like mobile shinsengumi unit (which would be "OMG! Kagome and Inuyasha go into the well and end up in the meiji era, and then they join to mobile shinsengumi!"), like the crossover I did with Naruto a year ago (which also racked less than 10 reviews).

Just statistically, I should have at least one or two guys who read a chapter and decided that I'm a "poopy head" and sent a review with that opinion, and then a few who read two chapters and decided it was too complicated and boring for them to read. But no. I feel as if nobody actually notices the story, is it possible that I update a few mintues after the page refreshes? And so my story gets pushed back to the second page by newer updates before it's even out?

Anyway, I'm bitching about a lot of stuff, it's most likely just nervousness about the army, pay no real attention to it.


	7. Together, perhaps?

Wow, it's been a while since I've published a chapter, seven months to be exact, I managed to finish one sixth of my army service during that time, only two more years to go.

I hate the army.

But for the chapter itself, apparently I can't live without writing, so here's a bit of story, enjoy it, as you won't see more coming out anytime soon.

Chapter 06: Together, perhaps?

"What are you doing here?" he asked silently, letting his hands feel her back, he remembered that in the past he did so many times, but it felt different this time.

"I've come looking for you" she answered, she told herself to move away from him, but her body didn't listen, she kept on hugging him, "Kikyo came to Japan and…" she started, but he quickly interfered.

"I'm sorry, Kagome, it's my fault she came after you".

She pulled away, hearing him saying that name was too much for her. "Sesshomaru and Shippo are waiting for us, where should I tell them to meet us" She took out the cellular phone, trying to focus her vision on the machine rather on the person.

"We don't meet them, let them search for a while, we need as many attention grabbers as we can get" he replied, thinking over the situation, he decided that he shouldn't have expected anything more, of course she would be angry, he thought. He pulled her away from the pink colored life she probably lead somewhere into his world of shadows. Inuyasha was quiet sure that some explaining were in order now.

"Listen, Kagome, it will probably come as a surprise to you, but me and Sesshomaru are running a secret agency in Japan.." Inuyasha started, Kagome almost shirked from surprise, but she was able to stop herself this time. Didn't he know about her being part of the NH? Shippo and Sesshomaru seemed to know, did Inuyasha simply not care all these years? And if so, why the sudden change?

"Obviously" she answered her own question, "nothing changed with him, I have something he wants, so he'll be next to me until he could snatch it away…".

Inuyasha kept on talking, 'reveling' to her the truth about the Sekigahara battle, without noticing she wasn't paying much attention to him.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked.

"Back to the club, I've left something important there, and we should clear up some issues with Bremen, the last thing we need is that they'll declare you kidnapped by the mystery driver." He smiled, "when we get there, give the phone to Iwaseki, he'll know what to do with it, also, ask him to take you into the bright moon room downstairs, there's something there you should pick up".

"What will you be doing at that time?" she glared at him.

"Naturally, I'll lie to Bremen, I'll make up a story about falling for you, and tell them that I've taken you to the embassy to get taken care of, Iwaseki will confirm my story, and that will be it"

"Naturally indeed" she hissed, "why not make up a different story? Actually, why not have me come in there and explain the situation?"

"They're rockers, they need the 'larger than life' stories to live on, it gives them something to dream about" he answered and stopped the vehicle, it was a back alley with a single door. "The back entrance to the club, only a few of us know about it, so go and talk to Iwaseki." Inuyasha said.

Kagome took the key he offered her and opened the door, the design was similar to that of the NH HQ building, many side rooms, some security cameras, "uhmm, Iwaseki?" she called, and the immediately regretted it.

A gun clicked behind her.

"How did you get here?" A man asked in English.

"Inuyasha gave me the key" she said, it wasn't the first time she was threatened by someone with a gun, but this person had a much more intimidating aura, she could tell it wasn't the first time he held a gun.

"If that's the case, shouldn't you be saying something right about now?" the man switched to Japanese.

"A password? Inuyasha never mentioned a password" Kagome thought to herself, all he did was rumble about the night hounds, and she hardly paid attention to that. Which meant that the password was probably related, a few sentences that wouldn't seem too weird if uttered in public. But would only make sense to those who expect to hear them.

"For the kids of tomorrow, one year from now and 500 years from today",

The man behind her lowered the gun, "I'm sorry about that, miss, can't be too careful. Can I assume you're the Kagome Inuyasha was waiting for and Ryo was talking about?"

"He mentioned me?"

"Ryo? He was screaming that we should call the cops right away, I barly managed to get sit him down…"

"I meant Inuyasha" she explained.

"oh, yes. He did mention your name a few times, but he has never explained the relationship you share" Iwaseki said, "Now, turn to the monitor on your right, it seems that he's about to begin his act".

"His act? What do you mean?" She turned to the monitor, it was a camera aimed at the club entrance, where the bands were gathered after a knock on the door.

"You'll see"

--------------0------------

Kagome stared at the screen while Inuyasha walked through the door, the moment he showed his face Ryo attacked him with a hammer kick of the 40cm heels. Inuyasha put his hands into a blocking position, but when the kick connected he was apparently overwhelmed by it's force and fell to the floor.

"hum, serves him right for underestimation them" Kagome thought to herself, had it been her, she decided, dodging such a blow would be easy.

However, a moment later, a fist went through the place where Inuyasha's face was before, and then some small projectile passed the spot which his eye was located at earlier.

"this is what I meant" Iwaseki said with a smile.

Kagome understood now, Inuyasha obviously saw all three attacks, and chose a method to avoid them with the least suspicion. Dodging the assault would make it seem like he was an expert, and taking all three of them would arise their suspicion as for why he would receive no visible damage on his body.

"Please, everybody, calm down." He asked of them, "Let me explain"

"It better be good" both Romio and Reiji both stepped closer to him, fists raised and ready to go for the kill.

"please hear me out" Kagome watched the screen as Inuyasha began his speech, "When that girl, Kagome, walked out of the van, something took over me, I don't know what it was, but I just had to be with her alone"

The men stopped moving, the two who were watching the play noted to themselves that Inuyasha's plan worked.

"Then, after a few seconds, I realized what I was doing, but I couldn't turn back at that point, so I kept driving around. Honestly, it never happened to me before, falling in love like that…"

"he's quite the actor, isn't he? Be careful not be fooled yourself" Iwaseki said to her while sneaking in a smile. Kagome didn't respond to him, but the thoughts in her mind were clear 'Don't worry; I won't be, not again'.

"but it's ok, she hit me a few times and planted some reason into me, so I took her to the Japanese embassy, it's really near, so you could go visit her tomorrow, if you want" Inuyasha continued.

"I guess it's my cue to step in now, with a recent call from you, who has found a hotel close by and wants to thank Ryo for her hospitality?" Iwaseki asked Kagome, she nodded, quietly confirming that Iwaseki also couldn't be trusted, he was too well-aware of Inuysaha's ploys.

He pulled out a cell phone from his pocket and started dialing, "why has he brought you here instead of the front entrance?" he asked her, the club's phone started ringing.

'Uhm, he wanted me to bring him something from a room called "bright moon", could you direct me to it?" Kagome said.

He turned her eyes at her direction, she could tell he was surprised, "he let you into his study room?" he asked in disbelief.

The disbelief was also shared by Kagome, her vision of Inuyasha didn't include a study room, defiantly not something that could force a reaction such as this from one of his close friends. "Yes, do you know what it is that he needs?" she asked.

"I don't have a clue, he never allowed me into that place…" Iwaseki said, he then began walking, leading Kagome to a small door, "it's here, I assume Inuyasha will be waiting for you outside when you're done".

"Thank you" She said.

"It's part of the job" Iwaseki answered, he then opened a different door and walked through it, the door led to a hallway with a different type of furniture, Kagome decided that it was the less secret part of the club.

"Now, what would that bastard want out of this pile of junk" she asked herself while opening the door to the bright moon room.

(88888888)(!)

Inuyasha sat in the van and opened the radio; it played an old evolution crisis song, a band who's vocals died a few years ago. It was already an hour since he left the club, Iwaseki 'explosive burst of rage' and threats to fire him made the play complete, the gangs both turned to Iwaseki and begged of him not to fire Inuyasha, saying that his actions were only because of love, and proclaiming that since he did bring Kagome to safety, there was no harm done..

Even though Iwaseki still 'fired' him, it meant that for all the band members knew it was a closed deal, and their recent sympathy they have shown towards him insured that they won't try to investigate about who he was or what really happened.

Humans were usually easy to predict, Inuyasha came to that conclusion a few decades ago. Despite what they claimed, their logic wasn't least objective, the 'reason' they took so much pride in was fragile to a point where anything could overcome it. Only a few humans really did manage to surprise him, among the were both historical figures and simpletons, people who ruled over armies of thousands and people who struggled to raise two kids while fighting poverty.

And today he met one of them, last time he met her he was still too young, he now knew, among them all, she was the gem who shined the brightest. With her at his side, nothing was impossible, at least nothing should be, and there was but one way to confirm it.

He felt the scar on his back burning, he considered it a good sign. Not many things could cause such a reaction in his body.

&&&8&&&8&&&

The study room wasn't what Kagome expected, that of course, after spending one minute of thinking what it should look like when she learned that he had a study room. Instead of being filled with ancient scrolls of Japanese Wiseman sayings and thesis, it was simply a dusty room with a large number of books and journals in it.

She walked up to one of the shelves and started reading the titles.

**"Darwin and co. the evolution of the human specie**" was the first book, Kagome found it quite surprising, but not nearly as much as the book next to it.

**"Darwin and co. Borrowed evolution of the demonic races"**

"just when I though it couldn't get any weirder.." Kagome thought to herself, even without wondering what was written inside the book, the title still raised the question of Darwin's involvement in the research process, was he himself a youkai? Kagome knew that youkais were still alive, but she has recently became painfully aware that they played a much more significant role in human society than she previously suspected, she couldn't help but wonder how many of human's achievement were actually done by demons, or how many world leaders were only pretending to be humans.

She opened the book and started reading, it was written in English:

**"Following the recent discussions of the mountain hermits and the Vatican's disclosure of the sealed thesis of the soul wars, I've decided that it was appropriate to combine my theory with the old demon mythology, in order to create a document from which future debates and theories could start. C. Darwin"**

Kagome closed the book, figuring that further reading would only raise more questions that she couldn't answer, just that small paragraph noted four important points: A. Darwin was a human, after all. B. The Christian Vatican archive held scrolls with demonic origins, meaning that the people she thought of as old coots probably knew more than she thought. C. there was a group of people or youkais called mountain hermits, probably not the mountain sennins she remembered meeting. D. Somewhere in the distant past, a war broke out, and the youkai referred to it as the soul wars.

She decided to move on to the next shelves, the first book was a much more conventional one, and so were the ones after it.

**"Explorers of the rain forest 1950-1990"**

**"Aztec tribes' collection"**

**"The wilderness of brazil"**

**"Argentina in seventy days"**

**"South America history"**

On their own, that list of books didn't surprise her, she recalled seeing some of them in the airports book store, so they weren't any surprise.

However, the lack of any demon authored book was noticed by her, and the fact that almost half of the books in room were about South America was also noted.

"so, next stop it South America?" Kagome asked herself, the amount of books spread around made it seem very likely. She then remembered something that Benkei once told her, legends that passed through both sides of his family, about places that Youkais wouldn't dare venture into, not because of holy protection, but actually quite the opposite. Bigger, Ancient Youkais. A complete continent that was ruled by a stronger race of youkais, and all the others wouldn't dare stepping a foot onto it.

Then, if Inuyasha had to resort to use human authored books, did it mean that south America was normally inaccessible by youkais? Indeed, that probably was a great plan if he wanted to disappear, but if that was the case, someone else should have thought about it earlier. Even he himself could have stayed there instead of traveling around the world so long.

"Unless, the needed conditions couldn't be fulfilled at that time" Kagome thought to herself, and whatever those needed conditions were, it probably had something to do with her.

She then heard a knock on the door.

(888888)

Most of the times, Inuyasha considered the feeling of his scar to be a sign that something interesting was about to happen, as to whether it was good or bad, that didn't matter much to him.

The scars he received from the battle with Naraku took twenty years to heal completely, this one was already nearing its seventy birthday, and still no sign of recovery. The enemy that time was truly remarkable, stronger than anything he met before, and still, only a prologue to what may happen if all the youkais in that continent awaken.

This time, however, the scar was burning for too long, the pain waves washed his entire body, making it impossible for him to move, or even call for help, not that anyone could help, of course. The scar was contaminated with great amount of youki and jyaki, in other words, Miasma. It was incurable, before the battle began, all the demons who participated in it agreed that if they survive, they would use the best of their abilities to help the wounded, and still, not one of the demon lords could cure it. The agreement itself, obviously, was unheard of, during history, demons, especially those of high class and power; tended to use any opportunity they had to, for lack of a better word, screw each other over.

Needless to say, it didn't happen in that battle, every single one of them knew the consequences of losing, the vampire, the werewolf, the dragon, he and Sesshomaru, and the rest of the demons, it was clear as daylight (or, as the vampire said, "as clear as watered down blood", Inuyasha never understood that east European lingo) that if one ancient youkai is allowed to wake up, he could easily awaken the rest of his race.

Inuyasha tried to keep on remembering the past, but the pain was too hard to ignore now, and more than that, he knew exactly what was about to happen. The miasma will outflow the scar into his blood circulation, causing his body to activate its self defense mechanism, which will result in a loss of over one third of his blood, and a temporary inability to move a muscle.

"it's here" he told himself, trying to hold his scream as his veins started to erupt, hanyou blood gushing all on his clothes, "hold it in" he kept on telling himself, had Shippo been around, it could have been an easier process, still painful, but at least tolerable. Though, if he thought about it clearly, Inuyasha would have probably come to the conclusion that moving around without the seal on his hanyou abilities could be as painful as the scar's eruption.

All that Inuyasha had left to him now was just to wait, silently as possible, until the pain would pass, "I hope Kagome has a driver license" he thought to himself.

----!----

"Inuyasha?" Kagome shouted.

"If I was him, I would have gone inside already, wouldn't I?" the voice shouted back from behind the door.

"Iwaseki then?" She asked.

"Yes, can I come in?" he said.

"Sure!" She shouted, she still had no idea what Inuyasha wanted her to bring, so she assumed that Iwaseki may know.

He slowly opened the door, "oh, so this is how this room looks like" he said, "I was expecting something more special".

"You mean this is the first time you've visited it?'" Kagome asked.

Iwaseki simply nodded, "Inuyasha was very clear about it, he said that he would rip me to shards if I even touch the door while he's gone".

In some twisted manner, it pleased Kagome to hear that, at least it meant that Inuyasha hasn't completely changed.

"And now that you're in here, what do you think he wanted me to bring?" she asked. Kagome came to the conclusion that it couldn't be just the books, if their next desteniation was really south America, then the youkai authored books would be useless to carry around, and the other could be purchased at any bookstore.

"Probably the package he brought two days ago, though I don't see it anywhere" Iwaseki answered in a somewhat displeased voice.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing, I just wish I haven't opened the door, the room was much more interesting before, now it's just the normal Night Hounds office, I've seen a couple of these, they all have the same design" He murmured and left the room.

That remark was enough for Kagome, if it truly was modeled the same as her own office, then it should hold the same features. She tried picturing back to her office, or rather, the time when she received it from her superior.

_"This looks like the normal type of office, Sir. I don't think I need any help understanding what to do with a desk and a bookshelf, and I perfectly aware of the sofa's functions" Kagome said, it was still at the time when she was part of Cell 15, her assignments were limited to data processing and co-working with the Japanese police._

_"I know you are, so just shut up and listen, the desk has a special drawer on the inner right side, and that's where you'll store your personal gun, if you ever receive one" her superior said, she always thought of him as a bitter man, the rumors said that he was kicked out of one of the special units because he lacked social skills and was far too cruel to others._

_"and moving on, behind the bookshelf you'll find a self destruct button, once you push it, you'll have twenty seconds before the door collapses and the smoke alarms turns into a napalm bomb" he continued the explanation, the more time Kagome spent under his command, the more it became clear to her that the rumors were probably true, he did lack social skills._

_"now, there are two safes in the room, for now, you'll use only one, it's under the sofa, you'll store there money jewelry and pictures. Nothing work related. I'm conducting surprise inspections, so if I ever find something else there, you'll be sent to finances faster than a bullet between the eyes"._

_"So, what's the point of having a personal safe if I'm not allowed to put there anything important?" She asked, secretly wondering where he got that metaphor, though it did reinforce the conclusion she reached earlier, he seriously lacked personal charisma._

_"Shut up, I was getting to it. The safe under the sofa is a fake, if we're ever under attack and we're forced to self destruct, the enemy will find it and stop looking for more. The real safe is in the back wall, if you're ever forced into a situation where you have an important item and are chased by the enemy, you're supposed to lock it inside the real safe."_

_"What's with all the security? Are we expecting an attack on the head quarters? Who can oppose us? we're working with both the police and the military" She tried to ask, he simply brushed her off._

_"a rookie like you should shut up and stay silent until someone speaks to you, don't ask pointless questions"_

_That was the time when she realized why the sofas were so uncomfortable to sleep on._

(8888)(8888)

Kagome turned to desk, it did have the inner drawer on the right, but it was dusty and empty, "figures, Inuyasha doesn't need a weapon to defend himself from most enemies, and the Tetsusaige wouldn't fit into that drawer.

Moving on, Kagome pushed all the books off the sofa and laid down on it, it was surprisingly rough and rather painful, it confirmed her suspicions that there was a safe under it. She pulled out the sofa and looked at the safe, it was the regular low quality safe that she also had in her office, it was designed so the enemy would quickly break it and be deceived not to look elsewhere.

"If it's the same, then it should fall apart with three turns to the right…" She thought to herself, her boss, who she now knew as Bossuke, said that his superiors, which she now knew were Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, instructed them to keep the safe at that condition.

The safe's door fell off, as she expected, she looked at the content of the vault, it had just more books, she read the first title.

**Ireland mythology: Loki and Ragnarok**

She didn't bother reading the rest, as she suspected, it was all meant for distraction, all the books were authored by humans.

Kagome pulled back the safe's door and connected it, she turned the lock five times to the left, until she heard the click sound, she then turned around and walked up to the wall. "The lever should now be unlocked" She told herself, somewhere in the room, there was a way to open the second safe.

---------

The immediate pain left inuyasha's body, all that was left now were the stains of blood on his clothes and the inability to move a muscle, even his eyes were heavy to move, though his mind was working at full capacity. And because of that, he knew what he missed earlier, he didn't tell Kagome what to bring, and even if she looked around all day, she'll never find any of the safes.

"maybe she'll ask Iwaseki to help" he hoped silently, though even Iwaseki's chances of finding the package were slim at best.

Just then, someone opened the van's doors.

"I think I've found it" Kagome said, she handed him a brown bag, "I've never thought I'll get to see that coat ever again in my entire life, same with the sword".

He turned his eyes to her, as he knew already, she was still able to make that sort of face. Inuyasha wanted to respond to her, to ask her how she found it, but his mouth didn't move.

"oh, aren't you grumpy?" she looked at him, she threw the bag to the back sit, "are you mad that you had to wait?" she asked.

Then, a phone rang inside the car, Kagome pulled out the Shippo's cellular phone, the letter S flashed on the screen, 'Sesshomaru' she guessed to herself, "it's your brother, do you want to speak with him?" she turned to Inuyasha.

"What's wrong with you? You can at least answer me…"

"It's a final warning; don't ignore me like this… "

"SIT!"

When Inuyasha's body slammed to the car sits, Kagome noticed that he didn't take any measures to reduce the damage from the crash, she also noticed that something splashed on her, blood.

Kagome turned on the car's inner light, when she looked at him at clear light she also noticed that she hasn't seen any signs of aura from him.

_"can you reflect that attack?" the older brother asked, though the flying bits of earth made a noticeable amount of sound, the younger brother still managed to hear the question and respond._

_"not a chance, even if my sword was a hundred times stronger, the rate of actual youki inside the bullet is far too low for a Bakuryuha to have any effect, the only thing we have going for us is the cool down time between each shot"_

_"some advantage, it just means that instead of blowing us apart from long range he needs to hack us to pieces from a close range, or do you two puppies think you can dodge his tentacles?" this time it was a werewolf to speak, he was a few centuries older than the elder brother, and even though he has ruled over his region with an iron grip for the past 1200 years, he too felt powerless._

_A bat appeared next to them, it was red and black, they recognized it as a message from a different team member, the lord of vampires, as he called himself. "greetings, fellow warriors of pride, I have news which will merit us in the battle, for I believe that the vile ancient still has weaknesses for us to exploit"_

_The bat began broadcasting pictures into their minds, it was a faster way to share strategies rather than simply discussing it._

_The strategy wasn't perfect, to say the least, it based itself purely on the enemy's suspected flaws, the old scrolls from the Vatican said that the greatest demons, Amon and Siren, only fought once every few years, especially at the later days of their 'career', the obvious question was for what reason did they wait._

_The answer, as Darwin suggested, was connected to the fusing attributes of the demons, at first, they would take on almost completely the form of the victim, and only later they would have found the correct balance between his old powers and his new one._

_And since their enemy hasn't been awake for a long time, it meant that his was still in his first stage of fusing, and hopefully, he took some of the flaws that the gun had._

_"after he shoots, we do whatever we can to dust, rust and bend his blowhole, if we are lucky, he would misfire, which would leave him with semi working melee abilities"_

_In a great turn of luck, the plan worked, the ancient youkai was killed in the end, with him, three other youkais died, one by the creatures tentacales, one by a radiation ray and the third died when he and Inuyasha were stung by the scorpion-like tail._

_---0-0----_

He woke up, the scar didn't as much now, but the dream gave him a new look on his plan, and not a refreshing one, he wasn't even strong enough to fight the weakend demon alone, so what would happen to him if he came across a demon that can utilize 100 of his powers?

No, this time it will have to be different, he would have to make it different, create a windscar that is not only enough to blow Naraku into dust, but one strong enough to kill an awakened demon, a wave strong enough to overcome barriers of will.

And if she was by his side, then it was possible.

He opened his eyes and looked to his left, he saw kagome sleeping next to him, her hands were placed over one of the freshly opened wounds.

Yes, it was possible.

Chapter six - over.

Yes, that was the chapter, with a seven months gap between it. Read and review please, old and new readers, there's nothing like getting some reviews to a story (though, to check for reviews, I need to be home which a prize not like any other is.


	8. Logic Thinking is The Mother of All Shit

Wow, what is this? Two chapters in the same year? I must be crazy!

No, I'm a jobnick soldier.

Story too long to tell, and you won't get it anyway. But I'm happy to be one, too bad I had a case of idioticy today. I washed my bag while some very important documents were still inside.

Oh, Passover is upon us, happy holyday for all of us.

Onwards to the chapter, more conclusions that follow my own brand of logic, enjoy reading the digging as much as I've enjoyed digging the digging.

Chapter 07 – Logic Thinking is The Mother of All Shit

"Inuyasha?"

"I'm here, right next to you" He answered.

"Why did it have to happen?" She asked.

'It didn't have to happen' Inuyasha thought to himself, he admitted to himself that he grew older from the days when things happened by themselves. "It's happening because I wanted it to happen" he said.

"For what reason?" Although she felt it was far too early in the morning for it, but Kagome has already started to calculate exactly what he meant.

"for all the wrong reasons, I guess" Inuyasha said to her, forcefully seating up, telling himself that this was no time to lay around in the car, no matter how pleasant it was.

"All the wrong reasons?" it didn't seem to Kagome like an excuse, he could have said that something was after her, he could have gone for the 'knight in shinning armor' play again, why didn't he do so? Did he suspect that she wouldn't believe him? Why would he think that way? For all he knew, she was still a civilian, he didn't know she knew about the Night Hounds, what was easier for him than making up a calculated lie?

She felt him changing his position and only then noted that her hands were still on his body, Kagome tried not to blush when she moved away.

"How are we getting to South America?"

"A plane to Mexico, I've secured us a sanctuary there, and then we simply cross the border by foot" he immediately asked himself why did he confess his plans so easily, without even inquiring how she knew their future direction.

'Why not take a plane to Brazil or something?' Kagome asked herself, was it another way to avoid giving away their direction? In the same sense, why couldn't he simply ask Kagura to bring them there? 'unless he doesn't want his brother to know what he's planning…' She kept following the thread of thought, if Sesshomaru finds out about Inuyasha's target place, how would he respond? She felt that most of Inuyasha's rush was simply getting at south America, which meant that once they were there, they would be untouchable?

Then why worry so much about the means of transport? Wouldn't it be easier to take the fastest route and throw everything else to hell? The only way to stop him would be to place someone at every airport in the world to stop him from boarding a plane.

'CRAP, damn, shit, to hell with it all'

Something then hit her, say there was a place with no law whatsoever, a place that every criminal could run to and no one would go in after him, would the criminal youkais truly miss out on such a place? The stories about ancient youkai's were still only legends. Then why did none of the criminal demons travel to south America already? The answer was simple, a system of tracking the demons before they get there, which means that there were already people in the airport ready to stop demons from getting on the flights to south America.

"Listen, Kag, there's going to be a lot of catching up for us to do… but for time being, can you simply trust me?" Inuyasha asked.

_Trust you? Again? I did this mistake once and all it got me was heartache, I swore to myself never to go through this again, never. You're probably expecting me to be in a state of shock and god knows what, well, I'm not. I'm about to make you tell me everything I need to know, and you won't notice it even, would you? You're still the same, you won't look at me for a second beyond what goes for you, aren't you?_

_What is it this time? You've discovered a twin gem for the shikon gem? Something that was dropped there ages ago and because of the special conditions in that place you couldn't afford to search for it on your own?_

_Have you become a coward as well? Are you so afraid of what lives there that you won't dare facing it alone? Even if there really is a 2nd shikon, what would you do with it? Do you happen to have anymore zombic girlfriends? Or do you still wish to become a full blood demon?_

"I don't if I can, Inuyasha" Kagome bit her lips, she was always told that there were better ways to create the 'painful and full of doubts' relief, but none worked for her, "it's been so long, and so much happened this past days…"

"Don't worry, Kag, I swear that nothing will happen to you, everything will be fine"

_Why is it that I'm feeling remorse now, just when I've passed the point of no return? Have I made a mistake? I thought the plan over many times, sure, it's the most dangerous thing, it can set the world million years back, but didn't I think about it already? Did I think about it enough? Was I delusional? Why are my legs shaking? Where did all my confidence disappear to? Didn't I wake up this morning feeling like I could take on the entire world and beat him with my hand tied? Why am I feeling so bad right now? Is it because of that dream that I lost all confident in myself, in what I've strived for in the last 80 years?_

_And Kagome, have I caused her more damage? It must be some curse that I'm carrying, make every woman I know unhappy, mother, Kikyo, and now Kagome.._

_Now? Am I kidding myself? I brought her into a world of fighting and violence 500 years ago, I snatched her away from the peaceful life she was having. Do I have the right to do so again?_

_No, I need to stop thinking this way, since when do I care about rights? I am still me, Inuyasha, a man willing to kill and die for my selfish desires, so if I have to sacrifice the world, so be it. And if I still don't get what I want, I'll throw the world into havoc again and again, until I get it. No more looking back, Keep pushing forward until I get her._

"Let's go, we can't use the van anymore, we'll go by public transportation" Inuyasha said, ignoring the fact that he was back in his youkai form, and his cloths were still stained by blood.

"shouldn't you take a bath before, or at least change out of what you're wearing?" Kagome suggested, not noticing how easily she gave up on her info milking plan.

"You're right…" He said, suddenly becoming aware of his state, and coming to realize that he was beginning to act unreasonable, within just a few hours 400 years of espionage thinking were gone down the drain.

"Are we there yet?" Kagome asked.

"haven't you ever flown a transatlantic before?" Inuyasha answered, "it usually takes fourteen hours to get there..."

"It seems that I've been catching up air miles lately, the jet lag will be horrible"

"Probably, but we can't afford to stay a night in an hotel yet, you'll have to stay moving for the next forty hours, after that, we can start taking things slowly"

**"I don't know where to start, dear Kagome, I never thought I'll have to write this letter alone.**

**I guess you would say that it's best to start from the beginning; Miroku would have probably said the same, I don't know whether Shippo could really deliver this scroll to you once you're born, and as for Inuyasha… he refuses to speak, hear and most likely even to think of you. Not surprising by the least, of course, it seems that his relationship with Kikyo isn't going so well nowadays…**

**No, there's no need for you to read that, this is my letter from me to you, a conclusion, if you want to call it by a different name.**

**After you've left, me and Miroku have gotten married, for some reason, I was surprised that he asked me to become his wife. Looking back, I think that I always held those doubts about our marriage, perhaps that was what ruined our last days together.**

**Again, I'm running ahead of myself, I should get back to the chronological order of things. Obviously, I agreed to his proposal right away, and we set on to build a home for ourselves. It sounded easy, at start, a small hut, one room for the two of us and a room for Shippo (who was staying with us at that time).**

**If you're asking yourself about Kohaku… he left with Sesshomaru, actually, he left with Rin, and Sesshomaru insisted that he should be responsible for the two of them. If you're wondering, they have a daughter, she looks exactly like I did when I was young.**

**I should really stop jumping between subjects, I never knew it was so hard to write off your own life, is it because it usually is done close to your death? A sort of last summarize of what you've done in your life, Success and failure, love and hate? All the things that you could have done differently, all the things you should have changed but never dared to act?**

**Back to the house we were building, the original plan was simple, too simple, it took me one look to see that there were no plans for a kids room. Can you believe it? Miroku, the man that offered every woman in the world to bare his child (except me, if you remember), didn't even think about that, so I had to take matters into my hands.**

**It was a complete disaster, instead of two months for the original hut and two more for the extra rooms, we've worked over a year to complete it. The entire story might have been just a silly memory, if the rooms wouldn't have stayed empty since the day they were completed. Yes, our house has never heard the rolling laughter of a child, nor did it hear the endless fighting between teenage boys and an over protective mother.**

**I don't know who was hurt more by it, three years after we've gotten married, I've decided that I should be checked by somebody.**

**Dear Kagome, excuse me for writing what I'm about to write, I'm perfectly aware of how you must have felt when Inuyasha and Kikyo have gotten back together. I too have never forgiven him for it, but I couldn't act the same way towards her. Just like me, she wanted to find happiness with the person she loved, I know that you were angry at the two of them, but I also know that your heart wasn't so narrow that you couldn't understand her feelings. Trust me, I'm sure that she felt exactly the same as you have when Inuyasha was hurt during that fight. She cried alongside with me when she told me that because of the shikon effect I could never be pregnant.**

**I think that was the first time I tried to push Miroku away, perhaps it was because he never pressured me to have a child, maybe I took on his burden myself, at first I tried telling him to spend time with other women, just so that he could have a successor to his bloodline, when he objected by saying that he could never leave some woman with his child I told him that he should divorce me and take a different wife, he refused to listen to me. I kept pressuring him into ideas like that, I told him to have sex with any woman, and that I would take care of the baby, I become obsessed with giving him a child, even if it wasn't mine.**

**I don't remember how he got me to stop suggesting those ideas, but the thought of the Houshi bloodline dying always bothered me, did I feel guilty that Kohaku has found himself a life with Rin? Or did I feel that the only reason Miroku married me was to continue his bloodline? I know that it's stupid, but ten years ago, when he was on his deathbed, all I could think about was finding him someone to bear him a child, I traded no more than a few words with him during his last month. Of all things I've done, I regret that the most, I was too insecure of my worth and too suspicious of his to live our marriage to the fullest, Miroku passed away with no one by his side, because I never matured from my first impression of him.**

**And today, with no more than a few months left for me, I look at the empty rooms inside our and think back to the time that he suggested building the two room hut, could he have known already that I could never give him a child? or did he simply not want one anymore after the battle? Be it the first or the last reason, it makes me miss him even more.**

**I don't know at what point of life you'll find this letter, maybe you're happily married, but if you were, Shippo probably wouldn't have given you the letter.**

**So, sweet Kagome, listen to a dying woman last advice, Trust your lover a bit more, it'll probably hurt, but in the end, you might not end like me.**

"Inuyasha" Kagome turned to the hanyou, which was getting comfortable under the airline's blanket, he turned to her, signaling her to continue, "Hypothetically, I mean purely hypothetically… what do you think would have happened if after we killed Naraku together things would have been different?" She asked.

He turned to her, it was a question he never allowed himself to think through, until today, there was no point thinking about that matter, he has made a decision and lived with it, further uncertainties would only have bad effects on his life.

"You mean had I married you and not Kikyo?"

Kagome quickly turned her head from him, wondering to herself why did he have to jump so fast into the possibility of marriage, she hoped that he wouldn't notice her blush, "for example, hypothetically, of course"

"well, I guess we would have lived in some nice castle near the sea… you like the sea, don't you? I remember reading that Tokyo girls made it a tradition to visit the sea at least once a year, so living by the sea would be nice, won't it? No, you would probably ask to live somewhere near the well, so you could visit your family more often…" He started saying, noting to himself that perhaps he has stayed away from Japan too long if he didn't knew almost anything about the younger generation.

"actually, you might have wanted to keep on living in your own era, at first I would have resisted, but then you would tease me and say the only reason I don't want to go is because I'm afraid of the modern world, ain't I right?" Inuyasha looked at her, she was taking comfort in the blanket, only then he noticed that she didn't take the blanket from beneath her chair, but pulled the one he was using.

"I might have, you would say that as a hanyou you weren't fit to the 21 century, and you would have made my life hell by staying by my side all day long without letting me go to school or hang around with my friends"

"Wait a moment, Kag, you say that if I followed you around to school or to your friends it would be hell, but you don't say anything about the possibility that we would have stayed in my time and would have been together 24/7?"

"that's different, in the feudal age I needed you to be by my side for protection, otherwise I would get eaten by ten youkais each day"

"first of all, last time I checked, you were the one to drive back Naraku's evil miasma cloud, so if you really wanted to, you could have taken care of just about any youkai in Japan" Inuyasha started.

_'was it really true?_' Kagome asked herself, didn't she somehow beat shippo only a few days ago? _'and I was really the one to put the first wound on Naraku, what am I so afraid of?'_ if so, why wasn't she used in dangerous missions? To keep her from getting harmed? _'Or to keep me from putting my power into use?'_

"Second, if anyone was in danger from passing through worlds, it was me. I could have died from a car accident, an antenna falling on me, a piano falling on my head or even just from licking an electric plug… the modern times is a battlefield of safety hazards" He stopped a moment to breath, "free me a bit of the blanket, while you're trying to explain your hostage syndrome"

Of course, Inuyasha knew very well that there was a blanket under each of their seats.

"I have no hostage syndrome, whatever it means" Kagome replied, "I'm just saying that if we would have stayed at my time you would make me a prisoner by over attention, at the feudal times there could have been a separating line between me as your wife and me as a person at my own life"

"That's just like saying that being my wife wouldn't be true, or at least would be cancelled whenever you go back to your 'real life', you don't really think I'd accept being 'husband on call', that only has meaning when you're at the feudal times"

"are you getting insulted by a hypothetic question? And besides, stop taking all the blanket to your side, it's called at this attitudes"

"I'm not insulted, I'm shocked. That being fuckin' cold hearted, Kag, and that's why you're so cold, it's not because of the attitude or anything"

_'Did he just say the F word? Why does it surprise me? I haven't heard him saying it the entire day… getting tired of the act already, Inuyasha? Back to your old self so fast? Stop hogging the blanket already, shouldn't you be saying the blankets are for weakling humans?'_

"Oh, that's low, out of reasonable comebacks already? It's hard to believe that you run the international section with so little patience"

Kagome immediately stopped her sentence,_ 'How can I be so stupid? What's wrong with you, Higurashi? You are no idiot rookie at this job, just keep your mouth shut!"_

"You say to(may)to, I say to(ma)to(u), now fork over some of the blanket, I've been bleeding over one third of my blood last night, I need some sleep"

"here, take some of it" Kagome covered him with of the blanket, also moving a few centimeters closer to him at the process, "just tell me, if we would have gone to my time nine years ago…"

"Five hundred and nine years, by my counting"

"Nine years ago, I've got the schedule lined somewhere back home. But if we had gone to my time, would you really be afraid of all those things you said before?"

"Terrified, would be sticking to you like super glue"

"How would you justify your behavior?"

"Probably by saying something really stupid like that there are youkais trying to hurt you'"

_Obviously, that's what you always say._

_Chapter seven – end_

_Lets see, no reviews for the last chapter, so there are also no shout outs, and no questions to answers… not much left to write here, I'd just say I've updated my profile about two weeks ago._


	9. Memories of Long Lost Lov

Wow, another chapter, I must be really doing nothing all day.

Half true, it turns out that I'm not as much a Jobnik as I wished, the dream was so good while it lasted..

Leaving my military service aside, before you is the eighth chapter of the story, not involving Kagome this time, focusing on the other characters. And as always, a bit of history mentioning, and some unrelated flufflike writings, enjoy, or hate. Your choice.

Chapter Eight: Memories of long lost love.

**"Agent Tails.**

**Following my previous report, continuing the same subject.**

**You're crazy.**

**Don't you have that Egyptian fox girl waiting for you? Did you think I wasn't aware of her? If you had tried hiding it from the first moment perhaps you would have a chance, but I've been there when you two first met.**

**And I've been there when you suddenly felt ill and couldn't, for some unknown reason, visit the ruins of the Alexandria great library with me. Don't take me as stupid, and more then that, don't hide things like that from me.**

**I know that you still hold a grudge against me for what I did, even when I went to meet Sango and Miroku you would run away as soon as you smelt me. I don't blame you, I know how strong a relationship you two had. But I loved her, not only for what we once had, but also for the beautiful moments we shared as a married couple.**

**Do you know what the most beautiful thing in women is? It's the way they act when they're in love.**

**You probably only thought of Kikyo as the strong, serious huntress that went after Naraku, right? You're right, that's Kikyo, she's got the strongest will in the world, nothing can stop her from doing what she wants.**

**And she doesn't always want to kill youkais. She sometimes wants flowers, or a trip to the mountain. It's amazing to see her pick up one single dud out of hundreds and saying that it will be the one to grow into the most adorable one.**

**That's right, she uses the word adorable sometimes, just like anyone else, she'd probably kill me (not literally, this time) if I told you this, but she was really disappointed when we visited Sango and Miroku and you weren't there.**

**That's right, she said that you were a really sweet child, and that it's a shame we don't spend time together anymore.**

**And the most wonderful thing about Kikyo? The way she would act when she was embarrassed. Whenever she was about to laugh, you could see it coming from miles away if you knew what to look for, at first she would try to freeze her posture, obviously she would fail, and the blush would come to her cheeks, a light pink touch on a pale white skin. When she felt that she couldn't hold on a straight face anymore, she would try to bury it somewhere and only then burst in laughter, she usually used me for that.**

**Some of our best nights began like that.**

**And why am I telling you this? Believe me that it's not to make you blush, if you're still capable of it. We have spent a good deal of time together, I want to see you move on, you can't live your life as a wanderer. Go to her, tell her some sweet words and make up with her, what are you so afraid of?**

**I know that you had some pretty bad role models, me and Kagome for once, and I'm quite sure that Miroku and Sango also didn't have as stable relationship as we hopped for.**

**Still, why does it matter to you? The lady is charming, intelligent, comes from a good and loving family, give her a chance, don't throw everything away because of one argument, do yourself and all of us a favor and visit her on your way to Cairo.**

**Forever your mentor.**

**Darkness."**

**"Agent Darkness.**

**Following our correspondence in earlier reports**

**Shut up, you're the last person to give me advice on such matters. You have a will power of a sponge whenever it comes to making romantic decisions. I read your report and felt like vomiting, and I'm not thinking about the 'sweet' part.**

**How long will it take you to wake up?**

**At any matter, I know what I'm doing with my life, I really do, me and her share a relationship of our own, don't try to force your own ideas on my life before you manage to live by them yourself.**

**Ps.**

**We made plans for dinner, I won't be able to get to the meeting, just give them five percent more than we planned.**

**Tails."**

**"Agent Tails**

**Cancel, something big came up, neither me or S won't be available for the next two months, Agent Feathers will be in charge for a while.**

**Darkness"**

**"Agent Darkness**

**I can't cancel, she'll have my head (not literally, she's not like your wife) if I ditch our meeting. Can I take her to the meeting?**

**Tails"**

**"Agent Tails**

**Yes, do so, and keep eyes on what's going on with arms marketing around the word, things are getting out of control.**

**Stay alive.**

**Inuyasha"**

**"Agent Darkness**

**I've been getting strange reports, too many informers saw you and S traveling with some high class outsiders.**

**What's going on?**

**Tails"**

**"Darkness**

**While waiting for your answer, which has yet to come, I've heard that you and S have landed on the west accompanied by too many outside heads, wat's happening? Answer me.**

**Tails"**

**"Darkness, they say you've gone into the forbidden lands, it's been almost two months since I've last heard of you and S, Feathers says so as well, what are you two getting us into?**

**Answer me! Dammit.**

**Tails"**

**"Agent Tails**

**We had a problem to take care of, it wasn't easy, but it's now done.**

**Darkness"**

**"Agent Tails**

**I had some time to think about my life. I think it's over between me and Kikyo**

**Darkness"**

**"Agent Darkness**

**While you were away, Tokegouware sent a letter, he wrote that he wants that pearl of wisdom back in his age.**

**Tails"**

**"Agent Tails**

**I'm not kidding, I'm ending my relationship with Kikyo.**

**And, as for now, she has already decided to end my life, I think that her revival wasn't' complete at that time. I'll meet you some day and dig the subject with you.**

**Darkness"**

**"Darkness**

**You do know that the only way you two could end what you have between you is if one of you leaves this world, right?**

**Ps. I'm engaged.**

**Tails"**

**"Shippo**

**I'm glad to hear so, I wish I could attend your wedding, but I don't think it'll be safe for any of us…**

**I'll be dropping this form of communication from now on, it's not safe anymore.**

**Speaking of which, take yourself and her into somewhere safe, things are getting bad here in Europe, they've started talking about taking the "sick man" down, things won't be easy in the middle east, why don't you go back to the homeland?**

**There's a rather large number of immigrants coming, so your future wife wouldn't attract that much attention.**

**Wait for my next message, some day, by some format.**

**Inuyasha"**

"So… she hasn't made any connection yet, did she?" Shippo was the first to start the conversation.

"It's been over 36 hours since she started her operation, it's impossible to think she didn't have the chance to contact us" Kagura continued.

"There's no reason to concerned, Agent Kagome is highly skilled and is well trained, I see no reason to worry" Sesshomaru said, trying to calm the two nervous youkais, he could understand why Shippo was so excited, but why Kagura? Perhaps she has gotten this feeling from the air, he decided to himself.

"I've been monitoring the police reports from the past few days, they don't report anything about a Japanese girl, neither do the hospitals." Shippo said, he focused his eyes on the security monitor, did he just see something there? It occurred to him that the computer should have at least notified them of any change.

"how are our relationship with the Round order?" Kagura asked quickly, "I'm sensing something here, it might be a Paladin" she said.

Sesshomaru sighed, he didn't like the British demon monitoring agencies, mostly because they were run by humans. "I've informed all of the European groups that we would be staying at the continent for a while, there's no reason for them to send anyone here.. I have no doubt that it's some trainee hero that thinks he has caught on to a demonic Sabbath.. Simply show him the signed scroll from the Vatican and make him leave"

Shippo never liked Paladins, he always thought them to be way to full of themselves to be of any help to man (or youkai) kind. Sure, all spiritual fighter around the globe shared this trait, but the Anglo-Saxon knights seemed to have taken that form of elitist thinking above the others, Inuyasha said that it was probably an anti reaction to the native druids of that island, who referred to themselves as flowers grown in the dust of holy people. It wasn't a pretty description, but it was a change from the snobbish Paladins or the Executioners.

The sound of a string being released was heard, followed by the strong, frightening sense of a powerful spirit projectile coming their way.

"Dodge!" Shippo shouted as he himself parried to the right, it wasn't enough time for Kagura to react, but Sesshomaru has already placed himself before her, with his sword drawn and ready to deflect. The arrow never came, it disintegrated when it entered the room.

"He isn't here, that traitor, it's odd that I haven't felt the deception earlier" Kikyo stepped into the room, passing by Shippo without paying attention, she took a moment to feel the air around.

"No wonder my arrow had no effect, you all reek with human spirit power.. my power. Where is the girl, and where is Inuyasha?" She asked, directing her question at Sesshomaru.

"You're faster than expected, Kikyo" He said, trying to put out all of his courage, in his mind he was already calculating the odds, what has inuyasha said about the source of her force…he described it as unbending willpower, all the emotions from her disturbed soul being focused by the jewel, thus creating a spiritualist that could stand at the same line with Buddha and Mosses. 'how would my willpower fare against her?', he thought to himself.

"But it's no use, my brother has long reached his target, didn't you hear about the space shuttle last week?" it wasn't a surprise to Sesshomaru when Kikyo took out another arrow.

"and why won't you tell me the truth?" She asked, "You do not wish that I'll take the knowledge from within your mind".

"You can't do so without killing me, and that is something you can't yet do"

"You shouldn't be so sure, I don't recall a time that you've faced me directly… even so, you don't have nearly enough power to protect the devil's spawn" Kikyo pointed her bow at Kagura. Sesshomaru knew exactly what effect Kikyo had on Naraku, firing an arrow at Kagura will be over-killing her, Kikyo could kill her by merely laying a hand on her.

"Don't you dare, wench!" Sesshomaru shouted, trying to note Shippo to take Kagura and run. 'come on, kid, this isn't the time to be shocked, can't you notice my youki? It's a fuckin' signal…".

"If you touch one brand of her hair, I swear to Budhha that I'll set Japan on fire, one word from me and youkais will swarm out of every hole in Tokyo, do you want to drag the entire world into this? Because, I swear to you that I don't care" he raised his voice, continuing his effort to get Kikyo's attention on him rather than on Shippo or Kagura.

"Indeed, it seems that you and your brother share the same dramatic sense for saving any damsel in distress.. Don't worry about the precious toy devil, for now, at the very least" Kkyo took another look at the room, "you haven't left this place the past two days, why is that so?" she asked.

"isn't it obvious? Or has your mind rotted away in this day and age?" Sesshomaru taunted her.

"you're right" She said, turning backwards, "you three have already lost your purpose in his eyes, I assume that you have already delivered the package to it's destination, I wonder what's his next goal…".

Sesshomaru breathed in relief, loosening the grip on his sword, "what are you planning, Inuyasha? Do you really expect to overcome this woman?" he said silently.

A small piece of paper floated inside the room, it started glowing in purple light, "what does she want now!" Shippo cursed, "Don't believe that I shall let you stay here, youkais', you should enjoy playing with some of this country's men", a voice was heard through the room.

"Dammit, she's not leaving us empty handed, we have to get out of this area quickly" Kagura said.

Chapter eight – end.

Well, a chapter with some letters going on, nothing to serious, but really fun to write.

I wish I could have written a bit more of Kagura into this chapter, but it didn't turn out that way, so never mind that.

Chapter seven got one review, from 'grumbling':

Yes, you do seem mad at Inuyasha, I tried to write him to be a bit more selfish than usual, I guess this chapter shows it even more, but I think it makes him more human (or more youkai XD). As for his goals, he has a general goal, and he knows what to do to achieve it, but he is scared shitless (and this time, not only because of women) of doing so, and he has a good reason to be, I'll try writing some of it into the next chapters. And for pairing Kagome with someone else, I can't see it happening, Takahashi is too predetermined to leave of any other pairing available. Besides, if I separate Inuyasha from Kagome, he would suffer, but she will probably too.

Well, that all to say, only god knows when the next chapter will be out, so in the meantime, review like you've never reviewed before!


	10. The Whole World is a Bitch

Military service update: I've gone down to a platoon, I have absaloutly no idea what's it's like, but I'm hoping it'll be nice.

Anyway, a chapter that focuses on Kagome and Inuyasha, if you like endless dialogue that doesn't get to the point, then this will be one of your favorite chapters.

If you don't like… well, you probably didn't even read the earlier chapters, right?

Let the story beg.. Uhm, Continue!

Chapter nine: The Whole World is a Bitch.

When the two stepped down from the plane, it was Kagome to first notice the strange symbol on one of the pictures in the various newspapers.

"it's a wonder how all the tabloids have managed to capture this one fireman from the same angle… his family probably made a wall with all his pictures by now". The headline of the paper was **"The Second London Fire"**, concerning a sudden mass arson that occurred.

"probably there was only one guy low enough to take pictures instead of helping, and he only had one decent photo" Inuyasha said while looking at the business section of the paper, some stocks he owned fell because of the panic in London, but as usual in those cases, the companies that were set in Asia stocks have skyrocketed. "And because he wanted to sell the photo to different newspapers he photoshoped the background each time".

Inuyasha took a look at the girl besides him and started laughing, he threw away the paper.

"What's so funny?" Kagome looked at him, trying to remember if she ever saw him laughing so hard, or for the same matter, looked so intelligent.

"Sorry, Kag. It's simply that I've been keeping this pose so long that I forgot I don't have any need for it now". He said, thinking to himself what good will the changes do today, he couldn't draw any money from a bank now, if his brother or any other of his acquaintances had a power base in south America, they will come after him before he could cross the border.

"That's weird" She said.

"hey, you try traveling over half the world while disguising as a businessman and then we'll talk about losing habits"

"Not that, the fireman's helmet"

"What about it?"

"It seems a bit unnatural, something with the camera's flash and the flames make it seem like there's the…" Kagome stopped her sentence, changing her words so that he won't suspect, "there's a Latin character on it".

"let me see" Inuyasha snatched a newspaper from the stand. "Damn it, the Rangers, I can't believe how fast she is".

It wasn't the first time Kagome heard about the Rangers, it was common knowledge at the night hounds that other countries had similar agencies, most of Europe's organizations were founded during the inquisition, and held a central headquarters in Italy. The rangers was also a European group that handled demons, their home base was in Scotland.

She worked with them once, two years ago, five men came to Japan, her role was to escort them to a building where bear demon hid himself, she was told that the youkai came from Scotland and therefore was under their jurisdiction.

Kagome now remembered that the five used crossbows, axes and swords rather than firearms, at that time she thought that they simply hid the guns into the weapons to conceal them at the airport, but now she understood the there was no deception, simply using traditional tools, just as she could have started using bows if she went back and joined the cleaners.

"who is fast?" Kagome asked.

"Kikyo, The Rangers are a secret organization, the fact that they revealed themselves means that they want to send a message, that the fire wasn't caused by any natural source, it's basically a global warning to all agents to watch out" he answered.

"Why do you think it's Kikyo?" She asked, 'is it because she is always on your mind?'.

"I don't have any solid evidence, just a feeling" he said, a really bad feeling, the miko was quick to catch on to his mind, he was still far too weak to severe the bond they had between them. "for now, we go on with the plan, a friend of mine is waiting for us" he stretched out the word friend, leaving Kagome to wonder who exactly he meant.

A couple of hours later, in a small, dust infected town at the Mexican border, Kagome was about to find the answer.

"there's a youkai in this town, not very strong, but his youki is all over the place" Kagome said, wondering to herself when had she started feeling youkais so clearly.

_It's the disruption of harmony, I guess, I know what Inuyasha feels like, so whenever the air around me changes I can feel any other youki trying to interfere._

"yes, that's our guy, my good old friend… he probably knows how to get us across the border" Inuyasha said, yes, the eagle demon was a smuggler, not only from the US but he also seemed to have connections with crime syndicates at south America, and with Kouga gone, there would be no one around to get in their way.

"An attack!" Kagome screamed.

'dammit, who can it be now? A youkai? An Indian fighter? An American commando unit?" Inuyasha thought to himself, were they too slow? Wasn't he always two steps before everyone else?

"Kongosuha!"

Inuyasha swung his sword to the air, releasing shards of diamonds to the enemy's direction.

"curse you, dog demon" the eagle demon hovered slowly to earth, his wings shattered by the attack, Amigo barely escaped being hit by the diamonds.

"Shit, he's fast" Kagome muttered silently, her mind being filled with memories of youkais who were fast enough to escape inuyasha's attacks, the list wasn't very large, but each name held some very bad meanings.

"Don't worry, the bastard isn't that agile, I was too much in a hurry to think straight and I attacked his after image" Inuyasha answered in order to calm down Kagome, though, for him, it meant that something was wrong, attacking prematurely? It couldn't be a good sign.

"So you attacked the fuckin' after image? That's probably one of the most basic youkais techniques these days and you fell for it like some roo…" Kagome silenced herself again, though she was starting to fear that Inuyasha deliriously ignored her speech slips.

"Why are you here again, and what are you thinking, attacking like this!" Amigo transformed back into his semi-human form. Walking slowly toward Inuyasha and Kagome, "that attack was meant to kill, and I don't care who you are, if you harm me or any other of this region's demons, you'll have to answer to the local Skulls, and let me tell you this, they aren't easy on foreigners" he shouted. In a small town like this, nobody was present at the street in those hours.

_"the Skulls? Isn't that the Mexican border patrol elite unit?"_ Kagome asked herself, _"a Mexican spiritual fighters unit? Why's that they are doing border patrols?" _didn't it mean that their main objective was to watch that no one crosses the border? _'but the Mexicans wouldn't warrant such an elite unite to prevent immigration to the USA… which means that the prevent movement to the south border, they stop people from south America?"_ Kagome tried thinking it over again, _"not to stop people from south America, but to stop people from entering south America.. the legendary forbidden youkai territory"_.

"I didn't have enough time to finish our conversation last time, but I need your help"

Inuyasha said to the eagle demon, now understanding that he attacked almost instantly, he knew that he attacked the after-image the moment he attacked, but before that, he didn't know that he was about to attack.

"You're right, you were in the middle of explanning me your situation when Kouga came in and got in our way" Amigo responded, now focusing his attention on Kagome, _'very gifted, but unattended to, throws out her feelings like an attack, why is he with someone so unpolished?'_

"Kouga!" Kagome interrupted the conversation, Kouga, the wolf demon? What was he doing in central America?

"I've taken care of him. That wimp won't stand in our way for a while" Inuyasha responded quickly. Though, if they ever went back to Japan, they'll have to deal with him, but heck with it, they still needed to get out alive.

"So, mister dog, who is this young girl? And what is such a powerful soul doing with you?" Amigo asked.

"Soul? What does he mean as soul? Did you get me into another one of your reincarnation events?" Kagome hissed at Inuyasha at Japanese, thinking to herself whether the fact she could still live after Kikyo took her soul was because she held a few more of Inuyasha's dead girlfriends souls, 'Kagome, the soul holder woman', what a nice book title it could be.

"Calm down, Kag, he's referring to some Youkai theology and myths, you shouldn't take it as it is" Inuyasha tried to calm her down, "I'll explain it all very shortly, just as soon as we get out of the danger zone".

"don't hush me, Inuyasha. You've been dragging me across half the world without telling me squat about what's going on, I need some answers, and I need them now"

"Should I leave you two alone?" Amigo suggested in Spanish, sure, he hated the dog demon for what he did earlier, but he also remembered Inuyasha telling him about some problems with his wife, this could be what he meant.

"There would be no need to, we have to haste ourselves" Inuyasha turned to Amigo in English, Kagome knew exactly that he was meaning it also at her, as if saying she was wasting precious time.

"Inuyasha, SIT" Kagome yelled, and while he was falling to the ground, she turned to the eagle and asked him to leave them alone for a while. Amigo, after viewing, what he seemed to think as an excellent control over demons from the young Shaman, gave up on any resolution he might have had to argue with her.

_"I really need to find a way to dump this collar one day" _Inuyasha thought to himself.

_"I really need to find a way to replace this collar one day" _Kagome smiled to herself.

-------

AN: Kagome is _Italics_, Inuyasha is **Bold**

**"So, what's so important to ask that you had to bust my head into the rocks?"**

_"Lets see, besides knowing what you're planning to do, why are you so afraid of meeting Kikyo, and what did that Eagle mean when he said soul?"_

**"Don't you want to leave anything to mystery? No? Not a single thing?**

**Well then, stop me when I start digging to deep… when the universe was created, scientist say it was 13 billion years ago, demon reincraniation go back only 2 billion years, as far as we've found out. There was a single mass of energy in existence, most people would refer to it at the source of all creation, god if you really want…"**

_"And what does that have to do with anything?"_

**"I'm getting to it, but I'll try to speed up. We assume that in the moment of creation, which, if you think about it, is the first conflict in existence, the source of power broke into two sorts of energy. One that could exist on it's own, which after many years evolved into what we now call life forms, and the different kind of energy, which despite being the mass of energy in universe, couldn't continue existing without burning itself out and vanish into thin air."**

_"Again, where is this all leading us?"_

**"It's either listening or arguing. Which one are you doing?"**

_"Sorry, go on"_

**"the second kind, which for personal comfort I'll demonic, we'll get to that point soon, needed to use different demonic energies in order to live on, while the more pure energy started the evolution process. Jump a few billion years forwards, and we have the newly formed earth, crawling with life forms and material, from rocks to dinosaurs to trees. At that time also occurs a mass invasion of demonic soul energy, which by then is very close to being extinct"**

_"Fast forward, I still can't see what does this have to do with Kikyo"_

**"It has nothing to do with her, I'm trying to get to a point here, so can you stop interrupting? Anyways, somewhere in the off time of our story the demonic souls discovered that in addition to consuming fellow demon souls, it's also possible to survive by submission, or through the process of merging, if you want to call it like that. So, when the demon souls arrive at earth, we see the first time a demon soul merges with an evolved life form, and for the first time in history, a youkai is created"**

_"So you're saying that Hanyous are a merge of pure souls and demonic parasite energy? Wasn't that the kind of stereotype you've been fighting against your whole life?"_

**"God no, Kag. A Hanyou is a biological creation, it has next to nothing to do with what we're talking about, at least not with what I've said so far… the first demos weren't even of living entities, they were closer to being forces of nature rather than intelligent creatures, but they were youkais. After that, we see millions of years of demon energy merging into pure life forms, creating prehistoric races of air youkai and water youkais, still not completely living, but with self awareness to some point"**

_"you might be a youkai with hundreds of years left to live, but while you're talking, I'm dying from old age…"_

**"I'm getting to it, if you would stop getting in the way every six lines I might have been able to keep my train of thought running long enough to finish it"**

_"ok, but just try to speed yourself up"_

**"It's hard to believe that you were the one who wanted to talk about this now…**

**For the sake of speeding the explanation, I'll skip some parts of the theory which aren't relevant to the point, remind me to go back to them later… anyway, as I've said earlier, the life on earth were created by souls, which are immortal, and after the process of evolution, the human race has begun it's age. During all the years of earth, the demon souls, who needed to parasite themselves upon others, have been dulled down to a point that they resembled the pure souls more and more.**

**Because the demon souls were so weak at this point, they actually merged into the purer souls, rather than swallowing them, it led to the creation of biological youkais, trees and plants mostly, not only self aware, but also able to change their condition to some point. After that, we see more animal based youkais, prehistoric races of mammals and insects, even some dino-youkais. At this point there was also the first difference between the youkais who followed the regular evolution process, the ones who's souls have merged into other beings, and between races which followed the borrowed evolution theory.**

_"I know of that term! I saw a book on it by Darwin in your club… ooh, I'm sorry, I interrupted you again"_

**"it's fine, I've managed to slide in twice as many lines from before… and yes, Darwin did write a thesis about it, but most of the real work was done about 90 years ago, by a Japanese man named Higurashi Jinrochi, if we ever get back to Japan, you should pick up some of his notes, he fires some study suggestions there that could cause a complete change of modern medicine..'**

_"Higurashi Jinrochi? That's the name of my grand-grand-grandfather… what did you say he did?"_

**"the way you describe him makes someone think of a sumo wrester, I've heard that he himself said he was born an old and fragile man.."**

_"you're avoiding me, do you mean that my grand-grand-grandfath… that Jinrochi worked on the subject? You knew that a relative of mine was involved in theorizing about demons and you didn't think about telling me?" _

**"Listen, Kag. There are about 50 families called Higurashi in Japan, and Jinrochi wasn't a rare name at those times, we have no proof that you are related to that coot"**

_"Don't insult my dead family members! It doesn't matter whether they are my family members or not, you should respect the dead!_

… _though, it could explain why my grandfather always threw such feats whenever he saw you.."_

_End of Chapter Nine_

Yep, I think I dug too deep, and it's not over yet.

Just so we make things clear, I thought about this part about nine months ago, before I was even a soldier, so it does seem a little out of place, but all in all, if you read enough into it, you'll see how it fits in the grand picture.

By the way, the idea was based on the first volume of Devilman, you can see some references to it around the story, I also took notes from other sources, but I'll be dammed if I remember them all.

Anyways, Don't worry, I'll get into the plot in a chapter or two, or maybe later, nothing's sure for now.

Shout outs (!)

Coykoi:

I understand why some people don't like Kikyo, it's the natural reaction to her, being the main romantic rival for the main couple. But in my eyes, Kikyo is a really great character, and most of all deserves pity, as she is destined never to be happy, she only lives to kill Naraku, and after that, she'll return to nothing, while all the other characters will continue living happily. For that reason, I also avoid portraying her as 'the evil zombie witch of the past' like others tend to do, the fact that Kikyo accepts her destiny is one of the things that makes her such a wonderful character.

And for Inuyasha being childish? I agree that I have tried to write him a bit differently than before, it's because of some changes in my way of thinking (blame the army for that) about the co living of one person with society and giving up what you want for what others call 'greater good', so there's a shift in how I write my main characters. And for him getting all that he wants, I agree that it may annoy some to see him betray Kagome, live happily with Kikyo and then go back to Kagome, but I plan to put him through some stuff that would make up for this…

Last, but not least, Kagome did enjoy an active sex-life, I indicated it in the first chapter (which was written years ago..), and she was portrayed as a man-eater, which doesn't quite fit her new image, but the story has so much plot holes that it really doesn't matter, at least that's what I think.

lin-ko:

I'm glad that you like the story, I also think that the incorporation of world history is what makes the story fun, not only to read, but also to write, it's also why I put in references to other anime and cultural symbols. The Night Hounds concept came because I wanted to portray a different Kagome than the 'happy happy joy joy cheer'

Kagome you mostly see in fanfiction, I wanted to create her in a way that gives her an excuse to suspect and try to differ herself from Inuyasha, and because I was writing an Naruto story at that time, it seemed natural to incorporate her into the Naruto fic, who also has a semi-sane woman in an agency called night hounds.

Kagome is really an unstable character, I go by the saying "a man forgets but never forgives, a woman forgives but never forgets" , so, for a good while now, Kagome is renewing her relationship with Inuyasha, at least to a certain point, but she is also suspicious of him and all the seemingly insane plans that he has don't make things any better.

Oh, and if you're wondering, Inuyasha does have reason in his plans, it's just that he's crazy, or has to be crazy if he wants things to succeed.

Well, that's all for now, review, because it'll be a while before the next update, and the best way to remind of the story's existence is by reviewing it!


	11. The Joke about Frost Hemorrhoids

Another week is over, and I'm home again, the past week in the army had nothing serious to write home about, so enjoy the new chapter.

Chapter ten: The Joke about Frost Hemorrhoids

**  
"As I was saying, there are pure souls who turned into humans, and while souls are immortal, humans are not, so after death, the soul travels into an unborn human in a circle of death and rebirth, death and rebirth, death and…"**

_"So we have gone into this entire conversation just so that you could tell me that I'm Kikyo's reincarnate?"_

**"No"**

"No?"

**"It's not soul reincarnation, it's simply movement of power, the source of human holy powers comes from that energy, it's simply easier to call it pure souls because we use the term of demon souls"**

_"so you're saying I'm not Kikyo's reincarnation? Don't I have the same brand of power as she has?"_

**"well, you have the same power, but it just means that you draw power from similar souls, you two might have gotten the soul of Midoriko, or maybe the soul of Merlin or the one of Aaron, it's not rare the energy splits up between several people."**

_"Great, so now I'm the soul of some English wizard? Does that mean I'm destined to end up drinking tea all day and look at young girls playing tennis?"_

**"Don't say destined"**

_"Why not?"_

**"No reason, I just hate that word"**

_"You hate the word destiny?"_

**"Actually, it's more the meaning that I hate, so it doesn't matter if you say destiny or fate, or whatever word you can think about"**

_"how about saying that It's within my nature to become a senile old pervert?"_

**"and why's that?"**

_"Didn't you just say I had the soul of Merlin"_

**"No, I said you might have gotten his energy, the same way that you get new atoms every time you eat, drink or breathe, conservation of matter in the universe"**

_"So you talked about soul transfer and reincarnation for what? Sadistic fun?"_

**"Using the metaphor of soul transfer is the easiest way to explain it, though the term soul is too much connected with 'feelings' and 'inner self' for my taste, but believe me, reading the original text is much harder"**

_"what original text?"_

**"A bunch of youkais decided that living in Europe was boring three thousand years ago, so they climbed the Himalaya, and started making up stories, and when other youkais came after them, they enchanted them into writing down the stories and thus they created the first written demon theology, which is the story you've just heard"**

_"So, all that you've said earlier was made up youkai nonsense?"_

**"Most of it, though the basic is true, and it's the only explanation that doesn't require dissecting demons" **

_"so they sat atop the highest mountain in the world, and all they could think about was some half assed mythology?"_

**"They made another discovery, while they were at it"**

_"What did they find out?"_

**"That when you sit hundreds of years atop frozen mountains, you don't get only hemorrhoids, you get frosty hemorrhoids"**

_"Inuyasha.'_

**"uhhm?"**

_"SIT"_

**"ouch… fuckin' ouch, what was that for, Kag?"**

_"I'm the one asking the questions here, What was that bad joke supposed to mean?"_

_(8888()&&&()8888)_

When amigo finished treating to his wounds, he saw the Japanese dog demon falling down to the ground because of what he suspected to be evil witchcraft, though demon tamers weren't common nowadays, and he suspected the demon was too strong to be controlled and still be left so free from chains and magical seals other than the rosary.

He reached the same conclusion from the different side as well, while his first impression was that the girl held incredible power, it was also very clear she was un-trained as one could be, or perhaps simply only focused on specific forms of spirituality?

No, he dismissed that thought, no matter what abilities she had, any form of them required at least basic control of her aura, and she had none of that. When he tried attacking the two, her aura spiked towards him, but there was nothing in that energy spike, most shamans would try to repel him with a constant wave of energy, to block him with a massive wall or to attack him with a sharp energy sting. The feeling that he perceived from the attack was of slightly pushing away while turning her head away from him, she didn't know what do with her sharp instincts. A complete beginner syndrome.

He took a look at Kagome's energy, it was now encompassing Inuyasha, "So is this the way she tames him?" he thought to himself, no, he ruled against that option, if that was the case than he would have run away on one of the many opportunities he had, which meant that the two stayed together because of some joint interests. The direction of energy was probably a manifestation of her current interest, it was a natural process, but most people didn't have enough power to make it so visible, and those who had the required amount of power knew how to keep it around them.

**"Do you want any more answers, Kag?"** Inuyasha asked, cleaning his face from the dessert dust.

_"Not now, I'm not in the mood for another pointless lecture that will end without anything" _Kagome answered quickly.

Then it hit her, the bastard has managed to make her not want to hear anymore, he avoided answering anything real and actually nullified her will to further try to learn more. Still, he probably expected her to fall asleep on their way to wherever he was taking her, most likely by saying she has been through a lot over the past few days, and that someone who is only human should take use of the time and rest.

_"but I won't let myself fall asleep, It doesn't matter how much experience he has, there's no way I can't figure out at least a bit of what he's planning"_ She decided to herself, her personal record was an ambush of being awake for about 56 hours without a wink of sleep, it was a stakeout for a crazy youkai, he saw himself as the Messiah of the Youkai race, he was trying to escape Japan, and she commanded one of the navel units. The orders she got was to make sure no ship leaves the Tokyo bay without being inspected.

Thinking back to it, what did the leader of Cell 06 say back then? that their main pain priority was to make sure he won't leave Japan, the woman said that in Japan he won't have the courage to do anything, but if he managed to get away, he could gather an army to support his cause.

But what army could he gather off shores so easily? And why did they say he wanted to be Messiah rather than just another potential youkai world dictator?

Well, there's no one better to ask rather than the source, is there?

_"Inuyasha.." _she turned to the dog youkai, trying to remember the youkai's alias, _"who was Kersanouha Inora?" _A question a bit out of the blue, but it was fine, it would confuse him as well, a bluff.

**"He was a black arms dealer that tried to start out some revolts against the government in south amrica so he could sell arms to both sides"** Inuyasha answered quickly, too quickly for Kagome's taste, why did he remember the case so easily? And how did he two crimes connect to each other? Many youkais dealt with crime in order to afford their high style life. She met a few of them back in Japan while she was working as an Agent, her officials didn't have any problem with that, as

long as the youkais remembered who to pay each month.

_"why did they call him Messiah, then? why not say that he tried to escape their iron grasp, or accuse him of making too much trouble at the world"_ She thought to herself, what was the meaning of Messiah? A savior, a prophet from the higher deities, usually coming after a long time of suffering, after times of depression, and maybe oppression? What was his call?

A sword to the sinners and a rose for the right, bring death upon those who were evil and give freedom to those who stayed true to the legends who told of his fore coming.

No, not only freedom, the religious revenge was never complete without the resurrection of the dead, all the dead would walk the land, heaven upon earth.

Did Inora fit into that? There were no legends telling of his coming, but it wasn't necessary for a specific name to be told, in fact, some cultured poeticized that their savior would come not as the knight in the shinning armor, but as a fragile being, that when receiving the hospitality of the poor people, will himself become the gate of the godly powers. It's main point was that the oppressed must stay just, and keep true to their own beliefs, and only then would the holy power save them.

Back to Inora, He tried to create revolutions in South America, give death to the rich and the control to the poor, it fits the mantra, but why would a Japanese youkai go all the way to South America, where there were no youkais? And why did he sell weapons to both parties?

No, he talked about Youkais, humans weren't part of his world, whatever he did wasn't for the human race, it was meant for something else.

_"Inuyasha"_

**"Uhhm?" **Inuyasha answered, Kagome seemed to be thinking of something, and why suddenly bring up the subject of Kersanouha? It was a pain in the neck to stop all of his gun shipping to Brazil, the maniac worm tried to ship himself down there, it was expensive to buy the permission from the Egyptian government to melt all the rifles and the bullets on their territory. But that was the only way to make sure no youkai eggs would reach there. It took some serious begging to Shippo's stepfather to use his connection with the government.

_"The wound on your back, when did you get it?" _Kagome asked, reminding herself that she should sometimes ask him about different topics, in order to avoid creating a tense interrogation feeling. But more than that, she remembered the wound that Naraku gave him, it was completely different than the one she saw back in the van.

**"A battle with a demon"** Inuyasha answered shortly, he certainly didn't want to dwell on the subject.

_"Aren't you being secretive, I didn't assume you've gotten such a wound from a papercut" _She told him, way to go, Inuyasha, you've been making towers in the air for about forty minutes now and you couldn't open you mouth now?

**"Kagome, listen carefully, let's leave this subject, you're focusing unwanted attention on us… that eagle fellow hates me already, I don't want to ruin everything before we even start"**

_"What do you mean drawing attention? That Amigo guy can't speak Japanese" _Kagome started saying, but her senses told her that the demon was indeed paying attention to her, lightly touching her power aura with his youki_. Eeew, is he probing me?_ She thought, he was skilled, his youki was hardly felt, but it caused her to look at her own power. Most of it was focused on Inuyasha's back, where the scar was.

**"That's better, don't worry about it, most spirit users have these problems with control." **Inuyasha said calmly, control or not, once they cross the border, power control would be the least of their problems, and if he could kill what was waiting for them down there, then there won't be much enemies left in the world to fight him.

Except Kikyo, of course, but she was a different problem, which had to wait at least a few weeks before he could move on to handling her.

_"Why am I getting the feeling that you're treating me like a child, Inuyasha?"_ She asked him, this time without any connection to information tactics, if she would have seen someone else asking the same question then she would have said it was coming from a fear, inferiority, and mostly a feeling of not wanting to be left behind.

**"I'm not treating you like a child, I'm simply commenting on a subject that I know better than you, I'm sure that there are many topics that you could enrich me upon, like uhhm, and stuff…"** Inuyasha cursed himself, that wasn't the right thing to say, he really shouldn't have.

_"Are you trying to embrace me? Inuyasha, there are many things that I know better than you, I've got a 2nd degree in maths, just so you'd know"_ Kagome answered, after coming back from the feudal ages, math has become an easy subject.

**"Kag, I taught 2nd degree math in three different universities"** Inuyasha commented to himself that this was about to be a long conversation, it wasn't his fault that he had 500 years to catch up on various form of knowledge.

_"you did? You never seemed like the type for that"_ She answered, but nor did he seem the type to run an international spy network,_ "What about sociology? I had a PhD in criminology"_

**"why don't I look the type to know math? Don't I look intelligent enough?"**

Inuyasha complained to her, didn't he look the same as always?

_"not your look, your personality" _Kagome said, though, she knew that she must admit, the hanyou seemed to be more settled down now, a bit more mature than she

remembered him to be.

End of Chapter ten.

Yeah, another chapter that got us nowhere. But it was fun to write. I really liked the messiah part.

Oh, and guess what, no shout outs (!) as there were no reviews, I wrote more chapters than reviews, it's a first.

By the way, next chapter is angst flashback. Be prepared.


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